A better Beginning
by akkeiton
Summary: an event can unfold in all kinds of ways. when ash falls into the water while running from the spearow flock, he is left injured and unconscious. how will things change if someone found him and decided to help him out from the start? first story. Rating may change. mild language at some parts.
1. A better ending to a terrible day

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

"**Insert words here" machine voice**

"_insert words here" telepathy_

_Disclaimer- i don't own pokemon, and probably never will  
_

_ch 1 a better ending to a terrible day  
_

'I can't believe that my first day could go this badly'

This was all that Ash could think to himself as he fell down the cliff and towards the water below him. He couldn't believe his luck today.

First he'd woken up late to receive a Pokémon from Prof. Oak, then he had it rubbed in his face by his rival Gary. He'd gotten lucky that the professor had an extra Pokémon in case, which had been what he'd thought until he met the Pokémon.

The last available Pokémon had been a Pikachu, an electric Pokémon that looked like a yellow mouse with two red patches on its cheeks. Almost immediately after being released from its poké-ball, it had shocked him. It had done so again when the professor handed him his other poké-balls and his pokédex.

Things still failed to improve after he made his way to route 1 to begin his journey, Pikachu refused to listen or even try to cooperate with him, so he got the "brilliant" idea to try to capture a Pokémon by himself without the mouse's help.

That had quickly turned out to be one of the single greatest mistakes he would ever remember doing if he lived through this whole encounter. After he had been humiliated by both a pidgey and a rattata (with Pikachu sitting back and laughing at him from a nearby tree), he lost his temper and chucked a rock from the side of the road into a nearby flock of pidgey and scattered the small brown and white birds.

Immediately he had noticed a small bird that he had scanned with his pokédex, which identified it as spearow. It turned out that spearow had been hit by the rock that ash threw, and he soon learned that spearow were well known for their bad temper.

The bird had attacked ash before it soon turned on Pikachu, and swooped after the mouse. Pikachu's response had been to hit the bird with a thundershock, which had stopped the angry little bird cold. Shortly after being hit by Pikachu, spearow had let out a scream that had called in backup, and within seconds the clearing they were in was filled with spearow that all had set their sights on both ash and Pikachu.

**Flashback**

"AHHHH" was all ash could think to say as the birds started to fill the clearing that he was currently standing in. He already was regretting throwing that rock, but the spearow obviously weren't satisfied by that since they started to swoop down towards him in hopes of getting revenge for their friend whom had called for help.

Ash heard a scream of "PIKA!" a small group of the spearow had started ganging up on Pikachu, and began beck and clawing at the poor thing. Turning to look towards Pikachu, ash saw that he was in bad shape already, if the bruises and cuts were anything to go by.

Now he may not get along with Pikachu at all, but ash still wouldn't even begin to dream of leaving Pikachu behind, since like it or not it was still his Pokémon. After making up his mind, ash ran towards Pikachu and upon reaching him he swung his arms and whatever he could find to wave the spearow away long enough to grab Pikachu.

After getting a hold of Pikachu he started running into the woods in hopes of losing the flock of angry sparrows that was chasing him. As he ran he noticed that there was another clearing that was coming up, and that the birds had not given up so easily. It soon started to rain, which again made ash curse his luck today.

Finally reaching the clearing, ash had to quickly stop as the clearing was on the edge of a cliff, with a river and some pretty good sized rocks at the bottom. Moments after he stopped the spearow flock surrounded him and made escape a very unlikely possibility.

Several of the spearow decided to make another attempt to attack and started coming at him. As the birds were pecking at him, ash slowly was forced to back up towards the cliff until he finally slipped due to the mud from the rain. As he started to fall he noticed that thanks to the rain, all the surfaces were too slick to grab on to. So as he started falling he clutched Pikachu to his chest, hoping to at least try and protect the Pokémon.

**Flashback end**

Ash hit the water with a loud and painful splash that, if he were luckier, would have knocked him out for the next part of his horrible day. Since the water current had picked him up, this sent ash onto a collision with some of the rocks.

Ash tried to flounder his way around through the water to avoid some of the rocks, which may have saved his life at the time. As he smashed into some of the rocks on the way downstream, he slowly started to lose consciousness, and with it his grip on Pikachu.

Feeling his grip slipping, ash used whatever strength he could to keep his hold on the small Pokémon, since he knew it wouldn't survive if he let go. While ash was struggling, he didn't pay any mind to his surroundings or what was going on with Pikachu, since he was only focused on keeping it safe.

As the surrounding trees went by in a slight blur Pikachu was thinking about the boy holding onto him as they were swept down the river, with him being sent into rocks along the way. 'I don't get it, why would he help me after I treated him so badly; hell this is kind of my fault anyway.' Pikachu was thinking to himself ' he could have left me there to die so he could get away, but instead he's actually in more danger now to help me'.

These thoughts made Pikachu come to a decision at that point. If he, no they made it out of this, he would try to repay even a small part of the loyalty that this boy had shown him, after all he owed his life to him. With this thought Pikachu did everything he could to hold on, so he could make this easier on ash.

After spending who knows how long going down the river and hitting a good number of rocks, ash and Pikachu finally felt themselves start to slow down, but both were too tired and sore to look up to see what was the reason.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Leaving her camp to get water she had come across a battered looking boy who was around her age, maybe a couple years younger. He had messy raven black hair that looked like it normally was covered, he was wearing a blue vest that had white sleeves and under that a black t-shirt on his legs were a pair of light blue jeans.

All this though wasn't noticed much until later, since she was more focused on the various rips and tears covering his cloths. Looking at his face she saw that he was knocked out, if the bruises he was sporting were anything to go by. She noticed he was clutching something to his chest, which she noticed was a Pikachu when she got closer to see if he was okay.

Thanking arceus that she had been here to find him, she reached to her belt to grab a poké-ball and threw it, with a flash of light a shape started to appear from the small red and white ball. The Pokémon looked around and then looked at her trainer, waiting for orders.

The closest resemblance would be a shark, but she stood on two legs and had two sharp claws for hands with sharp looking fins coming off of her forearms. She was purple for the most part, but had red scales covering her underbelly and the bottom part of her shark-like head. On either side of her head, there were two horns that vaguely resembled jet engines with a lighter shade of purple going through the center in a stripe.

"Gabite, please help me carry these two back to camp." The girl asked which caused the Pokémon to look to her side and then take notice of the injured boy and the small mouse Pokémon in his arms. Moving towards the injured pair, gabite picked up the boy, carefully so as not to risk any further harm to him, and began to follow her trainer, who had picked up Pikachu, back to the place that they set up camp.

While they were walking back to their camp, the girl looked at the condition of the tiny Pokémon in her arms, and started wondering how they got into the shape they were in. before long the group walking into a clearing that had a small fire pit and a tent set up; they had made it to their camp.

Resigning herself to waiting to ask the boy what happened, the girl went over to her tent, where she had gabite lay the boy so that she could patch him up as best she could with her skills in first-aid. As she grabbed the first-aid kit, she went to remove his vest to start treating what she could when she noticed a small red box in the pocket of the vest. Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened the box and realized that it was a pokédex, so she pressed a couple of buttons to find out what she could about the boy that she had found.

**"I am Dexter. A Pokédex programmed by Professor Oak for Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum of the town of Pallet. My function is to provide Ash with information and advice regarding Pokémon and their training. If lost or stolen, I cannot be replaced." **Spoke the mechanical voice from the box. "Ash Ketchum huh?" the girl thought aloud. At least she had a name now, so she knew she wasn't helping some thief or something.

Resuming her treatment of the ash's injuries, she thought to herself that whatever he had gone through he must be blessed to have come out of it without any worse injuries, or even alive at all since he had to have come down the river to get to the shore she found him at. As she worked she noticed the sun going down, and decided to get a fire going, leaving ash completely unaware of what was going on as he lay dead to the world on the floor of the tent.

Neither would know how much they had changed the future in their meeting, some of it for good and some for bad. But looking back both would be glad that they had met on this day.

**That's all for the first chapter, this is my first Ever story so it will most likely improve over time  
**

**Please review,**

**Feel free to give me any constructive criticism so that I can improve my writing as I go, and anybody that feels like flaming me, just make it so I know what you're so pissed off about.**

**This story is still a work in progress, but I'll keep working on it so feel free to give writing tips so I know how to improve it.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**Akkeiton**


	2. Introductions and a helping hand

**A/N thanks to everyone who has reviewed, or read this, it means a LOT to me that you would take the time to read this.**

Reviews

Nauran- thanks for the honesty and for the tips, I will probably go back later to edit my earlier chapters, when I feel I can do it effectively.

Disclaimer – I don't own Pokémon, which should be obvious

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

"**Insert words here" machine voice**

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

Ch 2 introductions and a helping hand

We've all had those mornings where getting up sucks Well this was one of those mornings for ash, though not really by choice. When he first attempted to get up he immediately regretted it, since the pain in his sides and in the arm he tried to push himself up with made him cry out in pain and fall back down onto the sleeping bag he was on,

'Sleeping bag?' ash thought to himself, he didn't have a clue where he was or what had happened since he passed out. Deciding to settle for looking around he noticed that he was inside a camping tent, a fairly big one too since it looked like it could fit 2 people maybe three if you tried.

"Good to see you're awake" spoke a voice that broke ash from his thoughts. Turning to the entrance to the tent he saw a girl that looked a little older than him, about 12 or 13. She had long blonde hair that reached the middle of her bag with one bang covering her left eye, with two bangs going down a little past her chin. Her clothing consisted of a black coat opened in the middle except for one button; with the coat itself reaching a bit lower than her knees.

She wore a plain black tank top underneath the coat. For pants she wore black jeans that hugged her legs to keep from getting in the way when walking. On her she wore a pair of shoes that kind of looked the high heels that he'd seen his mom wear when she went out sometimes.

Ash noticed that she had a slightly worried look in her eyes, which he noticed were a fairly deep blue. Ash looked at himself and remembered everything that he had gone through yesterday (though he didn't know just how long he'd been out for) when he was reminded of something. "Excuse me …" he started since he was hoping to know the name of the girl who had obviously helped him.

"Cynthia" the blonde girl replied with a bit of a smile on her face at his politeness when asking. "Cynthia, have you by any chance seen the Pikachu that was with me?" ash finished his question. "well I took care of his injuries after tending to yours as best I could" Cynthia said, "Pikachu is fine, just needing some rest, like you". "I see thanks" ash said gratefully, after all he had been taught by his mother that when someone helps you, you should thank them for it.

"by the way I'm ash Ketchum, from pallet town" ash introduced himself, "it's nice to meet you ash, I hope you don't mind but I saw your pokédex when I was patching you up yesterday" Cynthia said in a slightly more cautious tone. "Ok but why would I mind that?" was ash's confused reply as he had no idea what was so significant about his pokédex,

Cynthia had to keep her mouth from dropping open in disbelief; surely he'd known that his pokédex was the only means to prove who he is. "You do realize that it's important right?" Cynthia asked to see what he knew about being a trainer since he was clearly just starting out.

"well to be honest I thought it was just for scanning Pokémon, but you make it sound like it's a lot more important than that." Ash said in a somewhat nervous tone. Cynthia was more than a little surprised by this. After all he should have known about the importance of things like this, since it was the resident professor's job to inform the rookie trainers of important things like this.

"Ash" she began with a slight edge to her voice, which made ash more nervous about what the problem might be "the pokédex is the only form of id you have as a trainer, and if you lose it you can't get another one" she said angrily. Truthfully she wasn't angry at ash so much as how unprepared he was if this was any indication. Calming herself down after seeing ash start to sweat a bit, she decided to figure out just how much he actually knew.

"Ash can you tell me just what you actually know about being a Pokémon trainer?" she asked in an even tone of voice, though ash could tell that she sounded really frustrated about something, though he didn't know what. "well I know that we capture wild Pokémon by battling them and then we are supposed to train them to become stronger" ash tried to make it sound like it was more than it was, since he knew that he didn't know a lot, but that was the case for a lot of rookie trainers right?

Looking at Cynthia set off an alarm in his head, had he said something wrong? She seemed to be about ready to lose her temper again. "Ash did you study at all before your journey started?" Cynthia asked hoping to find at least something to keep her from getting angry again. "Uh… no" ash said as he kept trying to find out what the problem was. "Cynthia is there a problem?" he asked hoping that he could somehow calm her down to figure out what he did wrong.

"Ash do you realize that you are completely unprepared for your journey" Cynthia stated more than asked. Ash was slightly offended by this, but after yesterday he couldn't really find any argument that would make sense. He had been stupid to think that he would just get through everything without effort. Thinking back to his time growing up with Gary, he realized that while he was mean and rude to him that Gary was actually preparing for is journey.

Where ash would play games and just waste time, Gary would study and learn about Pokémon and how to train them. He was nowhere near prepared and he didn't even acknowledge it until after the events yesterday that nearly got him killed.

Cynthia noticed ash had gone quiet at her statement, and after a few minutes began to get a little worried about how he might have taken the criticism. 'I wonder if I was too harsh' she thought too herself, "ash" she asked to get his attention.

"I actually didn't realize that until yesterday" ash said when he finally decided to speak, Cynthia was honestly surprised by his acceptance of such a short coming. "I actually could have avoided everything that happened yesterday if I had thought to take this a bit more seriously" ash said in a resigned voice.

"so what exactly did happen yesterday? I just found you washed up on the river bank when I was going to collect water." Cynthia asked hoping to finally figure out what happened to ash. With a slightly sad look, ash started telling her about everything that happened yesterday, her face slowly became more and more horrified by thoughts that she couldn't stop of just how bad things could have ended.

Neither spoke for a few moments, finally Cynthia broke the silence "well I have to agree" she said softly, ash looked confused until he remembered his statement before his story, "yeah I kinda understand why Pikachu didn't want to listen to me" he said sadly. Cynthia looked at ash and decided to help him out, "well I can tell you and Pikachu won't be able to move for a little while, so if you want I could help you catch up on what you need to know about Pokémon." She offered kindly.

"I'd be really grateful if you would" ash said appreciatively, at that moment ash's stomach growled, which made him blush while Cynthia laughed. "I forgot that you haven't eaten since yesterday" she said while she went to get some of the leftover food she had made for breakfast.

**Later….**

Cynthia sat, slightly shocked by the poor table manner's that ash was showing while eating, while silently praying it wasn't the norm for him. "Thank you for the food" ash said after he had finished eating. Both of them settled into a somewhat awkward silence, neither knowing how to talk to the other since they had only just met.

"So where are you from Cynthia?" ash inquired, deciding to break the silence. "well I'm from celestic town, in the sinnoh region." Cynthia responded fondly when she remembered her home town. Ash racked his brain, but for the life of him couldn't remember anything about sinnoh, Cynthia picked up on this and said "you don't know anything about sinnoh do you?"

"h-how can you tell?" ash stuttered slightly, "well the look on your face kind of gave you away" he turned a little red in embarrassment. "Well If I didn't study about Pokémon, then why would I have studied the regions?" ash asked lowly, once again kicking himself for his stupidity. "No need to be so down about it ash." Cynthia said, hoping that she could get him off his current train of thought.

He really was reminding her of the recent revelation she had gone through after she was crushed by the sinnoh champion about a month ago. 'if I hadn't gotten that wake-up call, I might not even have been here, and if that were the case….' Her thoughts trailed off, she shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts.

"So what could you tell me about the sinnoh region?" ash asked, bringing her back into the conversation, and thankfully away from thoughts of "what if". "Well" she started, thinking about where to start about her home, "The sinnoh region is located north of kanto, so it has a lot of different Pokémon there that you couldn't find around here." Thinking about the region itself she was reminded of her own journey through sinnoh.

"there is a lot to see around sinnoh, I'm sure I still haven't seen everything there." ash looked particularly excited at the idea of seeing the place someday, this made Cynthia smile at his enthusiasm." probably the thing that sinnoh is most known for would be mt. coronet, since it divides the entire region in half." Ash thought deeply about everything he was learning, 'and if I ever went there, I might have just went in without knowing anything and gotten lost or something' he thought as he figured that meeting Cynthia, while not under the best of circumstance, was probably the best thing for him as a trainer.

"So what exactly do you think I should know about being a trainer?" he asked, thinking back to the blonde girl's offer to help him while he recovered. "Well I think first things first, I should probably go over just what kind of Pokémon there are" said blonde thought aloud. "What do you mean? I know what kinds of Pokémon there are." Ash said, as he didn't see what he needed to know about this.

"Really? Then what are the 19 types?" Cynthia said skeptically. Ash started to think on this, "well there's water, fire, grass, electric, flying, rock, ghost, and- uh…" ash trailed off as he realized he didn't have a clue on the others, not to mention that he only knew about the last 4 because he'd seen some Pokémon of the said types. Flying and electric were obvious, but he only had known about the rock and ghost because he recalled the Pokémon league match he'd seen on TV the night before between a gengar and onix.

"And the 12 others?" Cynthia asked, sighing slightly as she knew he couldn't think of them. "I don't know" ash now understood the point that she was trying to make and decided to ask "could you tell me please?" Cynthia got a small smile at how well he was taking the criticism, 'he definitely is taking this better than I would have at this point' she thought with slight embarrassment.

"Well ash, there are also ground, fighting, ice, psychic, poison, normal, dragon types" she explained, giving ash time in between each to hopefully commit them to memory. "Not that long ago, the last two, steel and dark, were both discovered" she finished. Ash meanwhile was thinking on each of these and making sure to remember them for future reference.

"In addition to the 19 types though…" Cynthia started up again, noting the surprise on ash's face with a bit of amusement " there are also Pokémon with multiple types, such as normal flying types like spearow" she noticed a slight flinch at the name of the bird Pokémon. "Sorry" she had forgotten about the events of the previous day, "it's ok" ash said.

"I didn't think there was so much depth to Pokémon and their typing" ash thought aloud, Cynthia smirked at this "well that was just their typing, we still need to go over the different advantages and disadvantages of each type" ash groaned at this, knowing it would give him a headache. Cynthia chuckled at his response "trust me I know how you feel" she said knowing his thoughts, since her's were similar when she had been learning from her grandmother.

"it's worth it though, since knowing how types match up can help you win a match, but don't forget that type isn't everything in a battle" she thought back to several times she had seen examples of this. "I guess electric types would be a good starting point since Pikachu is your only Pokémon right now" at the mention of his name, Pikachu woke up from where he had been sleeping with a groggy "chaaaa".

Walking up to ash he had a regretful look on his face and bowed his head in shame, "pika pi chu" he said in a sad tone with his ears drooping. Ash took a minute, but quickly realized what he was trying to say, "It's not your fault that happened Pikachu" he started, surprising Pikachu once again "pik…" Pikachu started before ash stopped him "I was the one who made the spearow angry in the first place, so either way, we both are at fault for what happened" Cynthia was surprised at the maturity he showed dealing with the mouse.

Ash met eyes with Pikachu for a moment, before offering his hand to the mouse Pokémon "why don't we agree that we were both wrong? I'm willing to work with you, if you will give me another chance to" he said. Pikachu looked at the hand and thought to himself 'I can't believe that he's willing to trust me as his partner still after how stupid I was acting yesterday, I'm not gonna waste this chance though' with this thought, Pikachu grabbed ash's hand with his little paw and the two shook hands in agreement to work with one another.

Cynthia watched the two with a smile on her face, and was hesitant to break up the moment. "ash" she startled the two out of their thoughts, "If you want we could hold off on tutoring" thinking on the word she decided to go with that. "oh yeah, we should probably get started on that" both he and Pikachu looked a little embarrassed at this, which brought another smile too her face. "well ash I guess that since Pikachu Is awake now we can cover what types he is most suited to and least" she stated and received a nod from both trainer and Pokémon.

**later on…**

Ash was fighting the urge to hold his head after the last few hours of learning that he'd gone through. He now realized that he was even further behind then he thought, Cynthia had made sure to go over the different types again while she covered the weakness of each, as well as the advantage each had over another. Throughout the entire lesson, she kept stressing the importance of not focusing on a Pokémon's type, pointing out that a Pokémon could be trained to fight through its weakness.

Ash had learned from several examples that Cynthia had given, in the form of gym leaders that trainers didn't necessarily need to catch all the Pokémon they saw. Thinking about this he found his goal to capture every type of Pokémon to be a bit much to accomplish. Ash then decided that he wouldn't be setting such a goal for himself and lowered the bar to what was easily a more reasonable goal, he figured that he should compete in the Pokémon league that Cynthia had mentioned during her description of the gym leaders when he'd asked about the gym system.

With some help from Cynthia, ash made his way back to the tent to lay down to rest, since he was reminded upon trying to get up himself that while he didn't have broken bones or anything like that, he still was injured. While he was lying down Cynthia made her way to her own sleeping bag to sleep for herself. She silently was thankful that she had the foresight to pack two sleeping bags, and thought back to the day.

'He really does pick up things quickly, that makes helping him on this much easier." She thought as she laid her head down to sleep. As she drifted off she thought back to how she spent the day and realized that she hadn't had her usual problem of having nothing to do throughout the day. 'It's been a while since I had anything to do other than training' she thought with a silent laugh so as not to wake ash.

**There's chapter 2**

**I really want to thank the people who reviewed this, I honestly don't know much about what I'm doing so the constructive criticism is really appreciated.**

**Yes I made Cynthia younger in this, since honestly she is one of my favorite characters, thanks a lot to the fics I've read on here.**

**Also I decided that Cynthia isn't going to be the sinnoh champion in this fic since I decided to use that as her reason for her being in kanto.**

**To make a long story short, prior to her challenging the sinnoh champ, she was, as she states in the anime, a lot like Paul, after facing the champ she was completely destroyed like Paul was by her in the anime. This was her wake-up call, and so she's travelling now to try and improve herself after she has looked at herself as a trainer.**

**Once again please review, and if you have any constructive criticism then please feel free to post it in a review. Also, if you are gonna flame me, then just say what you are pissed off about.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**akkeiton**


	3. Meeting the enemy

**A/N thanks to everyone that is reading this**

**In advance I'm going to let everyone know that this will most likely end up rayshipping, but even if it doesn't Ash and Cynthia will still be close.**

Reviews

Grassy nol – yeah I plan for Ash and Cynthia to travel together, although I don't know if it will be constant since I'm just starting this, and yes I plan for Ash to be smarter than canon,

Me Llamo Berry – sorry about the punctuation, but I am trying to work on it, thank you for pointing that out though.

Disclaimer – still don't own pokemon

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

"**Insert words here" machine voice**

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

Ch 3 - meeting the enemy

Ash woke up with a yawn as he was gently shook awake by Pikachu, since he was still tender from his injures a few days ago. Since he first was brought to Cynthia's camp it had been three days, during which she had kept her promise and continued teaching him what he needed to know as a Pokémon trainer. Both Ash and Cynthia talked more and got to know each other as time went on and shared a few laughs at some of the stories from before they left home.

While she thought back on the last couple days she had to admit that it was a lot of work since they had to start almost from scratch, following the lesson on Pokémon types they started covering the different rules for league matches. After all, learning about all of this wouldn't make a difference if Ash were to be disqualified because of a rule he didn't know about.

When he was able to move around on his own, he tried to help around the camp, which to Cynthia's dismay uncovered the fact that Ash had absolutely no idea how to cook. When attempting to make a simple stew like he'd seen his mother make when they went camping, the result was blackened, and nearly made both trainers sick, so it was agreed that Ash wouldn't be cooking for a while (if ever).

Ash had finished his reminiscing when he realized that he had to get up to start the day, so he got up and changed into what remained of his clothes, he sighed as he once again reminded himself to get new clothes when he finally made it to viridian city. He was fortunate that Cynthia was able to contact Prof. Oak via poke gear so he and Ash's mother didn't assume the worst and start a search party to find him.

"Morning everyone" Ash greeted as he exited the tent, he was similarly greeted by everyone in the camp. Over the last couple days, ash was introduced to all of Cynthia's team, which consisted of Gabite, who he learned was the one who carried him to the camp when he was found, Roselia, a grass Pokémon that stood with its legs crossed and had a red flower its right hand and a blue for its left. Then there was Milotic, which was a beautiful sea serpent Pokémon that he was only slightly shocked to learn was extremely rare. The most interesting Pokémon that she had though was a small blue jackal looking Pokémon that had a black mask looking patch of fur around its eyes; he learned that this was Riolu.

While ash was thinking, he had almost tripped over Pikachu, "pika!" Pikachu yelled as he narrowly avoided being stepped on.

"Sorry buddy, I was just thinking." Ash apologized as he returned his attention to the present. Ash and Pikachu had both gotten much closer over the days, and both were already good friends, in spite of their rocky start. Pikachu had also been training with Cynthia's Pokémon a bit, and had improved with their help in his training.

"Finally decided to join us?" Cynthia said as she had just put down the dish she had been eating from. "Breakfast was actually finished about an hour ago" she said as if reading his mind, making him grin sheepishly at how obvious he had been.

"Thanks" Ash said as he picked up a bowl to scoop up some of the oatmeal **(I can't think of anything better)** that she had made for breakfast. He noticed that it was still a bit warm, which he was thankful for.

"Ash" Cynthia started as he sat down to start eating," I think it's about time to start heading into town to get supplies" in her head she added 'I only had enough for a week by myself' she didn't hold anything against Ash but she had used up all her first-aid supplies, and was low on food as well.

"Ok" was Ash's reply after he finished the bite he had been eating. One of the main things Cynthia had made sure to drill into his head had been table manners. She had quickly made that her top priority after seeing how he ate.

'Thank arceus that he doesn't eat like that anymore' Cynthia didn't admit it out loud but she was disgusted by how bad his table manners, or lack of, had been.

After Ash had finished eating, both decided to start packing everything up, with Ash following Cynthia's directions on where she wanted everything. In all it took about 20 minutes to take down the tent and pack it up. The rest of the camp took maybe 15 minutes at most.

After gathering up the camping supplies and dousing the remainder of the camp fire, Cynthia returned her Pokémon and the two trainers set out towards Viridian city. Ash let Cynthia lead since he had no sense of direction, which he finally admitted after failing miserably to read the map of Kanto.

An hour or so from the camp, Ash thought he had heard something in the nearby bushes, and decided to see for himself. Being careful not to make too much noise, Ash snuck up to the edge of a small clearing that would have been missed if he had not been on the path. Hiding behind a fairly large tree, Ash noticed that there were two people standing in the clearing, a man with short purple hair and green eyes, and a woman with long red hair reaching down to the middle of her back in somewhat of a ponytail with blue eyes. The thing that caught Ash's attention was the white uniforms that the two were wearing; both had a red R on their chest.

"So what are we gonna tell the boss now?" the man spoke in a irritated voice

"We can't tell him that we failed because of some bratty little girl" the woman said fearfully

'whoever this boss of theirs' is, they sure sound scared of him' Ash thought to himself, he still had no idea who these people were, but whatever they were talking about must have been important.

"We don't have to tell him anything" spoke a third voice that broke Ash from his thoughts, the voice sounded somewhat nasally, and had a bit of a New York accent to it. Looking around, Ash couldn't find anyone else in the clearing; he then took notice of a Pokémon that was standing in the clearing with the man and woman. It looked like a cat, but stood on its hind legs and had a gold coin on its forehead. Ash had seen this Pokémon, though he couldn't remember where, and knew it was a Meowth.

"Really? How do you figure that Meowth?" the woman snapped at the cat Pokémon

"She's right. We have to make a report on the operation" the man said dejectedly

To Ash's surprise, the cat Pokémon responded, "it's simple, alls we has to do is sneak back into the Pokémon center when nobodies looking and then we can swipe the Pokémon in the place, then the boss won't even know that we failed on the first try" the cat explained. Both the man and woman thought for a moment on this.

"That's all well and good Meowth, but since we tried once already, the cops are still keeping watch over the center" the man said.

Listening to the conversation happening a few meters away from him, ash stood horrified as he realized who these people were. Ash had grown up without a father, since his died before he was born. When ash had asked his mother about how he'd died one time, his mother had told him about how his father was a well known and respected Pokémon ranger who was dealing with a well organized group of criminals who were known for their brutality and for stopping at nothing to achieve their goals.

"Team Rocket" ash whispered, forgetting for a moment that even whispering would be the same as yelling in such a small clearing.

"What was that?" the man said looking towards where ash was hiding

Panicking, Ash took off in a dead run, forgetting any ache or pain from his lingering injuries. As he ran he cursed himself for wandering off by himself, especially after what had happened last time he got himself in a situation like this.

"Beedrill, GO!" came a shout from the man behind him, telling Ash that they were following him. "Twinneedle!" the order for the attack made Ash run as fast as his legs could carry him, with Pikachu hanging on for all he was worth to avoid being left behind. Ash had heard stories of people being swarmed by hives of beedrill and being killed with the same attack that had just been called.

"Gabite, flamethrower" came the voice that Ash was never happier to hear at this point, followed by a stream of flame crashing into the Pokémon that was chasing him. "Ash are you alright?" turning, Ash saw Cynthia running up to him, as Gabite took its place between the pair and the team rocket trio that was chasing them.

Ash finally got a look at the Pokémon that had been chasing him, it was a large bee that had black stripes down it's abdomen with a sharp yellow stinger that upon a closer look dripped poison, it had two large red compound lenses for eyes. The most intimidating feature though was the huge silver stingers on its forearms.

Currently the bee was struggling to pull itself off the ground, and was covered in burns from the flamethrower, eventually it got up and started flapping its wings and flew over in front of its trainer to await an order.

"What's with everyone bothering us today?" the man mumbled as he looked over his Pokémon.

"What are you thinking? Do you really expect me to stand by and let you kill my friend?" Cynthia demanded there weren't a lot of things that made her especially angry; attacking her friends was one of them, "just who do you think you are"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**If you are one of the many who hate the team rocket motto, then skip this section to the next line of X's**

**Prepare for trouble**

_**Make IT Double**_

**To protect the world from devastation**

_**To unite all peoples within our nation**_

**To denounce the evils of truth and love**

_**To extend our reach to the stars above**_

**Jessie!**

_**James!**_

**Team Rocket, Blast off at the speed of light!**

_**Surrender now or prepare to fight!**_

_**Meowth, that's right!**_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x

After finishing their introductions, the now named Jessie, pulled out a pokéball, and threw it calling out "Go, Gloom!" in a flash of light a Pokémon that had what looked like a wilted flower on its head.

At any other time, Ash would have pulled out his pokédex to scan the Pokémon, but he decided to forgo the act in favor of keeping his attention on both of the Pokémon. He knew he couldn't do much, but still felt that he should help as best he can. Understanding the situation, Pikachu jumped off of Ash's shoulder to take his place by Gabite,

"You should stay out of fights that aren't in your league kid" James spoke up, truth be told he didn't see the kid as that big of a threat, but he had a job to do and he was going to finish it.

"Let the battle decide who's out of their league" Ash shot back, ' I hope the training Pikachu has done with Gabite and the others was enough for this.

"gloom, use razor leaf" Jessie yelled, which sent the Pokémon into action. From the flower on its head, Gloom released a barrage of sharp leaves towards both Gabite and Pikachu. Not waiting for a response, both Pokémon went with what came naturally and dodged to the sides.

"Beedrill use fury attack on Gabite!" James ordered while both Pokémon were in the act of dodging. Beedrill dove towards Gabite, and started attempting to slash her with its stingers, Gabite was forced to dodge since she knew about how dangerous the poison on its stingers was from even a scratch.

"gabite use metal claw and parry it!" Cynthia knew that the steel type move would protect her Pokémon from the poison on the stingers. Moving in on beedrill, Gabite's claws took a slightly polished look to them and emitted a white light, she met Beedrill's stingers and the two both struggled to overpower the other.

"gloom use stun spore!" Jessie ordered knowing that beedrill would move to avoid it on its own. This would have worked if not for one thing, both Jessie and James had completely ignored Ash and Pikachu.

"Pikachu stop it with quick attack!" the command caught Jessie by surprise, and Gloom was sent flying back and landed a few feet away.

"damn" she swore lightly, as she realized she had to take care of the electric mouse to help beedrill "gloom use acid on Pikachu!" the weed Pokémon complied and spat a thick purple ooze at the mouse, which the mouse immediately dodged by jumping to the left. Causing the ooze to hit a tree and start eating away at it.

'I don't want to get hit by that' Pikachu thought as he answered by firing a thundershock at the Pokémon. The attack had little effect due to gloom's obvious grass typing, so it shrugged off the electric attack with little trouble.

'We need to get some kind of edge' Ash thought as he saw the ineffective electric attack 'but what can I do? They are clearly more experienced then I am' having a sudden idea "Pikachu hit beedrill and gloom with thunderwave!" he called out, hoping it would work.

Pikachu released a charge of electricity that made its way to both of the poison Pokémon, "Beedrill/Gloom dodge it!" both James and Jessie ordered, knowing that getting hit by the attack would cripple them.

"Gabite, grab beedrill!" Cynthia ordered, with the dragon complying, releasing metal claw as beedrill attempted to fly away from her, and promptly grabbed the bee-like Pokémon and held on as the thunderwave approached.

Before James could give an order to Beedrill, the electric attack hit both Gabite and beedrill, due to gabite being part ground type, the thunderwave had no effect. The same could not be said for beedrill as it was left in a heap as electricity sparked off of it, showing that beedrill was clearly paralyzed.

"Now gabite, toss beedrill into gloom!" Cynthia ordered seeing an opening she happily capitalized on. Lifting the poison type over her head, gabite threw the Pokémon towards gloom with a growl.

"Gloom move out of the way" Jessie ordered hastily, gloom jumped back in order to dodge, but then came face to face with Gabite.

"Gabite, hit it with flamethrower!" Cynthia called out the attack that ended any chance that Jessie had to react, Gabite took a breath and with a cry, spat out a jet of flame that covered gloom from sight.

Gloom hit the ground with a thud covered in burns and clearly unconscious. Gritting her teeth, Jessie pointed Glooms pokéball and said "gloom return" returning the Pokémon to its pokéball via a jet of red light. James repeated this process, knowing that they had lost this round and that they had to get away, after all these two needed to be reported to the boss if they were this good at such a young age.

"Now we're turning you into the police" Cynthia said seeing the clear sign that they had won. Her declaration was followed by a blast in between the two teams, which kicked up a smoke screen. After the smoke cleared, she looked around noticing that Jessie and James were gone "Gabite!" at her Pokémon's cry she looked up and saw what looked like a balloon that was shaped like a Meowth head rising up a little ways away.

"What took you so long?" James snapped at Meowth, who was already sitting in the basket.

"well I had to fill up the damn thing since we deflated it when we landed, you could be a little more grateful for me coming to get you at all" Meowth responded, much to Cynthia's surprise.

As the balloon flew off, Ash and Cynthia knew that they wouldn't be catching the trio now, so they decided to start on their way after Cynthia returned Gabite. Before long they had made it to the edge of the forest and were about 20 minutes away from viridian city.

**Meanwhile**

Jessie, James, and Meowth all stood in front of a monitor in the safe house that they were currently at, with beedrill and Gloom resting in a stolen recovery machine from a Pokémon center **(I don't know what they are actually called)**. The screen suddenly turned on, with a man in an expensive brown suit sat looking back at them. "This had better be important" He spoke in a voice that meant to get right to the point and left no room for misinterpretation.

Sighing, James stepped forward, as he had agreed to make the report, "sir, the operation at the viridian city Pokémon center was a failure." He said evenly, knowing how much the boss hated when someone showed fear in front of him.

"I gave you a simple job" the boss began calmly, all three flinched knowing that he was anything but, "you were supposed to get in and steal all the Pokémon being held there, and you come to me with NOTHING!?" at this the boss smashed a fist onto the desk in front of him.

"There was an unexpected interference" James started before he was interrupted by the boss.

"The viridian Pokémon center is for rookie trainers and the injured, what could have possibly been able to stand in your way?!" the boss said, still furious with the trio.

"Sir we were forced to deal with a red headed girl, who held us off until the police arrive, she called herself misty waterflower" Jessie said slightly surprising the boss.

"Waterflower? Interesting, it certainly explains your failure if one of the waterflower children was there" he thought back to the interference by the waterflowers years ago. They were almost as much of an inconvenience as Ketchum had been prior to his death.

"Very well, I will overlook your failure in light of this new information, but I do expect a reason for the lateness of your report." The boss was a man who valued punctuality above almost anything else so the trio knew that they needed a good reason or they would be worse off than before.

"Well sir…" James began "while we were waiting in the nearby woods for an opening to make our way to the safe house, we were stumbled upon by a young trainer" at this the boss seemed slightly interested by their choice to mention such a thing.

"we attempted to capture him so he wouldn't reveal our location to the police when a friend of his, a blond girl with a gabite, showed up to help him" at the mention of a gabite, the trio noticed the surprise on the boss' face, which was understandable, as the entire family gabite belonged too were extremely rare in sinnoh, let alone Kanto.

"Continue"

"After her arrival, we were drawn into a battle with the two, which unfortunately we lost." Jessie said

"And you saw fit to report this to me why?" the boss looked like he was starting to lose his temper again.

"we felt that such young people being capable of commanding Pokémon so well would be good to know about for future reference, so as to avoid them interfering with our operations" James spoke.

At this the boss was surprised that it actually made sense. After all in their line of work, all threats should be known so as to prepare for future confrontation. He'd learned the hard way from Ketchum. He'd brushed him off as a mere nuisance, which ultimately led to him losing many operations from his interference until he finally took him seriously as a threat.

"The girl's name was never mentioned, but the boy's name was Ash" James said

"I see, and what exactly did they look like?" the two humans looked thoughtful for a moment before Meowth spoke up.

"I managed to get a picture of the two of dem boss" he said as he held up a photo he had taken when he had disappeared during the battle.

The boss looked at the girl first, noticing that she was about 12 or 13 and wore all black travelling clothes. He figured she had been travelling for a couple years, and had already been training her Pokémon, so she wasn't that much of a threat if dealt with correctly. Upon looking at the boy though, he froze. To the normal eye the kid didn't look like much, just another rookie trainer starting out, his clothes spoke of this by the tears that obviously came from a mishap due to inexperience. What caught his attention though was the boy's face, he had seen those same eyes before, and the birthmarks on his cheeks only drove the point further home, since while not the same, the birthmarks bore a resemblance to his most hated enemy. Hell even the kid's hair looked the same.

"Ketchum" He growled out as he looked at the picture of Ash. His previous encounters with Alexander Ketchum coming to the front of his mind, all of them raising his temper. Because of Ketchum, he'd been forced to fall back years on more than half of his plans just to get rid of the irritating man. He held no illusions that the boy, who was clearly his son, would be any less of a problem for him. He wished he could simply eliminate the boy, but he was no doubt being watched by the league and the rangers. He needed to play this smart.

"I have a mission for you three" at this, Jessie, James, and Meowth all snapped to attention. "I want you three two capture these two and bring them to me" at their confused looks he decided to add "I have a personal score to settle with the boy if he is who I think he is" at this the trio nodded and asked no more.

With that the screen turned off and left the two humans and Pokémon alone in the safe house. As they contemplated their new assignment, the recovery machine beeped, signaling that their Pokémon were healed and ready for their next battle.

**That's all for chapter 3**

**A/N sorry if this wasn't something you liked, I haven't had any practice with fight scenes so I don't know how well I did on this one.**

**I've just thought of this but I am now going to look for a beta since stories with a beta I've always noticed turn out better. So if anyone has any suggestions please pm me to tell me.**

**Please review and offer any suggestions that you can think of to improve the quality of this story. If you are going to flame me please just explain what you are flaming me for, cause I will just ignore it if I can't understand what your complaining about.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**Akkeiton**


	4. A Day in Viridian

**A/N sorry for the long wait to the people that have been reading this, but also thank you to all of you who have been reading this, it means a lot that I have people who like the story I've been writing.**

Disclaimer – if I didn't own Pokémon when I started, why would I now?

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

"**Insert words here" machine voice**

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

Ch 4 A day in viridian

Leaving the forest behind them, Ash and Cynthia arrived at viridian city as the sun started to go down. As the pair made it into town they were stopped by a voice shouting at them, "Stop".

Looking in the direction the voice originated from, they noticed it belonged to a woman with blue hair and brown eyes **(don't quote me on this)** the most noticeable feature though, was definitely the police uniform she had on.

Not wanting to have any trouble with the law, both Ash and Cynthia complied and waited for the woman to come over to them. "What are you two doing out at this hour?" she asked the two of them with suspicion on her face as she looked over them.

"Well we just got into town so is there some kind of problem ma'am?" Cynthia asked, making sure to be as respectful as possible.

Looking at the state of Ash's clothes, the woman thought about it and came to the conclusion that it was the most likely case, besides; the thieves reported by the nurse at the Pokémon center were older and had a Meowth with them. "Sorry about that, we just recently had an attempted break in at the local Pokémon center, so the force is still on high alert" she explained, receiving an understanding nod from both of the young trainers.

"It's alright ma'am" Ash said, understanding the need to be alert with thieves running around.

"Anyway, my name's Jennifer, but everyone just calls me Jenny" the woman introduced herself.

"It's nice to meet you, my name's Ash Ketchum, from Pallet town" Ash introduced himself, "this is Pikachu" he continued, knowing the electric Pokémon would want to be introduced as well.

"So you're the other trainer that left Pallet this week, if you wanna catch up to the others, you'd better pick up the pace" Jenny said with a slight grin on her face. She then turned to face Cynthia waiting for her introduction.

"My name's Cynthia Shirona, I'm from Celestic town, in the Sinnoh region" at this, Ash realized that he hadn't heard Cynthia use her last name since he met her.

"If it's no trouble I would like to see some ID please" Jenny asked politely.

"Of course" Cynthia replied, before fishing out a pokédex that she had in a pocket on her coat. Ash took note that it looked far different from the red box that was Dexter, figuring it was a different model from his.

" **I am Dextine, programmed by professor Rowan for Pokémon trainer Cynthia Shirona, to provide her with information and advice regarding the training of Pokémon, if lost or stolen, I cannot be replaced."** Spoke a distinctly female voice from the scanning device.

"Alright, that will be enough for ID" Jenny said after verifying the photo ID on the device. "So where exactly are you heading too? It's a bit late to be leaving town now." She asked.

"Well we were planning on staying at the Pokémon center and then gathering supplies for travel in the morning" Cynthia said, as she was the one who had the most experience travelling.

"Well if that's the case the Pokémon center is down the road from here" Jenny said pointing a ways down towards a building that stood out even from the distance they were standing at. "I'd give you a lift, but during the attempted theft yesterday, my bike was destroyed" she said glumly. Though they thanked her for the offer, both Ash and Cynthia felt like they had just been handed a miracle for some strange reason.

"Thank you for the help" Ash said politely as the pair of trainers started on their way towards the Pokémon center.

Within roughly 10 minutes, they stood in front of the doors to the Pokémon center. As they walked in the doors, a woman wearing a nurse's uniform with red hair in two ring-like pigtails and blue eyes.

Smiling kindly at them, the woman asked "hello, welcome to the viridian city Pokémon center, how may I help you?"

"We would like to rent a room for the night if there are any available" Cynthia spoke up, hoping that at least one room was free.

"of course, I just need to check which rooms aren't in use at the moment" the Pokémon nurse said before turning her attention to the computer at her side, typing at a few keys.

As this was happening, Ash looked around the building, taking note of the look of the place. The area they were currently standing in was mostly empty, with some benches and tables off to the sides, clearly for trainers to wait for their Pokémon. He also noticed a sign that hung above a hallway, reading cafeteria. There was a stairway that led towards the rooms, such as the one they were renting for tonight.

"Alright miss Shirona, here is the key to your room, it will be room 29, have a good night" spoke nurse joy with the kindness she was known for.

Smiling, Cynthia took the key from the nurse "thank you, you have a good night as well" turning around she took note of Ash looking around before she walked over to him. "Ash, come on, we have our room for the night."

Snapping out of his tourist like state, Ash followed Cynthia as she started towards the stairs, since he had no idea where the room was. After they made their way through the hall at the top of the stairs to their room, they both walked into the room.

The room was fairly simple, with a pair of double beds on the sides of the room with a door on the right that lead to the bathroom. Deciding to get changed for bed, Ash and Cynthia set their bags on the beds that each had claimed, Pikachu jumped onto the bed, landing beside Ash's bag to let his trainer get changed to go to sleep.

Cynthia made her way to the bathroom to change, leaving Ash to change in the bedroom. He didn't really have much to wear since he hadn't thought about how damaged his clothes would get on his journey, so he had only a regular t-shirt and shorts to wear for the night. Shortly after he had changed and was putting his things to the side so he could lie down on the bed, Cynthia left the bathroom; Ash had noticed that she hadn't really gotten anything that different from normal in terms of her night clothes. She was wearing a black shirt that had slightly longer sleeves to keep her warmer than a normal t-shirt would, while she was wearing a pair of pants that had a pattern somewhat like Gabite's horns. He couldn't help a smirk at this, since he had noticed that she loved almost anything that had to do with the gabite family.

Having finished the setup for their beds, Ash and Cynthia lay down in their respective beds, both wishing the other a good night sleep.

**Next morning…**

As the sun started to rise and shine through the window, Cynthia slowly started to wake herself up. Looking over at Ash, who was sleeping like a rock, she couldn't help but be reminded of how she would always sleep in when she was starting her journey. 'I guess all rookies have that habit' she thought, deciding to wake him up after she finished getting ready for the day, she made her way to the bathroom to take a shower. After finishing said shower, Cynthia walked back into the room dressed in her daily clothes and began wondering how to wake Ash up. "Ash, its morning" she stated while shaking him lightly, not having any idea how to start trying to wake him up. Unsurprisingly, she got no reaction from him, though Pikachu was definitely awake, if the irritated look on his face was anything to go by.

'Why do I have to get stuck with the job of waking him up all the time' Pikachu thought to himself, since he had been waking Ash up every morning since they had started getting along. Continuing his mental rant he slowly rose from his spot on the bed.

Cynthia watched the little mouse stand up next to Ash and got slightly nervous when she saw his cheeks start sparking. "Uh… Pikachu, hold on…" she started to say, worried about the mouse's method for waking Ash up. "CHUUUU!" the mouse continued as if he hadn't heard anything and proceeded to shock his trainer, which had results instantly.

Ash had been sleeping peacefully, not really worrying about anything around him, when he was woken up by the feeling of Pikachu shocking him, which he noted was becoming a bit too familiar. Ash shot himself out of the bed, and proceed to fall over and start twitching on the floor, groaning in pain as he looked at the mouse sitting on his former resting place. "Why?" was the only thing he said as he stared up at Pikachu, "pi" the mouse said with a deadpan look on its face, that Ash took as him saying "are you really asking that?". With a sigh Ash got up and went about getting himself ready for the day, as he knew that there was no way that he would be getting back to sleep. He then noticed that Cynthia was standing a little ways away from the bed, with a look that was somewhere between worried and amused. "Morning" he greeted with a sheepish smile, which she returned with a similar greeting.

After Ash had woken up and proceeded to take a shower, He and Cynthia walked down to the cafeteria to get themselves, and their Pokémon something to eat for breakfast. As they sat down with their food, Ash noticed that Cynthia looked like she was thinking on something. When he was about halfway through his food, she spoke up, voicing her thought. "Hey ash?" she asked hoping to start the conversation.

Finishing the food in his mouth as Cynthia had drilled into his head for the past few days, Ash replied to her question, "ya?" he said. He noticed she seemed a little nervous about asking him whatever she wanted to ask.

"Well I was wondering if you would mind if I traveled with you for a while" Cynthia asked while she was hoping that he wouldn't mind, since she had nothing else that she could do. After all, she didn't really make a lot of friends while she was travelling, since she wasn't exactly the friendliest person to be around. She really was ashamed of how she had treated people prior to her challenge to the champion; she had been so overconfident that she was unbearable to be around for any more time than necessary.

Ash looked at Cynthia and noticed the hopeful look in her eye as she asked to travel with him, "uh, I don't really have a problem with it" he started "but it seems like I'd just be slowing you down along the way, so why do you want to travel with me?". He hoped that he hadn't offended her, but he really had no clue why someone would willingly weigh themselves down like she was talking about doing.

"To tell the truth" Cynthia started, sounding somewhat depressed, "I don't have anything else to be doing since I'm focusing on travelling for the time being".

"That sounds kind of like an excuse to me", Ash's response surprised her since it was a bit more insightful then he usually seemed to be. Seeing the surprise on her face, Ash chuckled " I might seem dense, but I did pick up some things from home you know" he said.

Truthfully Ash had mostly picked up his skill in reading excuse thanks to Gary, since the arrogant jerk had never been able to admit defeat, or even a tie, in anything in his life. Ash had gotten so used to picking apart Gary's excuses for his loses, that it had just become something he did naturally all the time.

"Well I guess it is kind of a flimsy excuse huh?" Cynthia chuckled at how easily she was figured out. "to tell the truth, I'd much rather be travelling with someone else, since I've travelled solo enough already." Taking the silence as a que to continue, she resumed talking "honestly, I was really anti-social while I was travelling, so I didn't exactly make a lot of friends that I can just travel around with."

"Well I was just kind of wanting to know about why you were wanting to travel with me, seeing as you are a lot more experienced than me." Ash said. "Like I said though, I really have no problem with you travelling with me, who knows; you might be able to teach me some more along the way."

After hearing this, Cynthia smiled gratefully at Ash, finished with their conversation, the two went back to eating their food. Once they finished their breakfast, they took their trays to be cleaned, and looked at the clock to find that it was roughly 8. The two trainers then decided to take care of buying their supplies for when they would be leaving to continue travelling later that day.

**Later…..**

Ash, Cynthia and Pikachu were walking towards the counter of the Pokémon market, or poke-mart as it was commonly known, with the few things that they were planning to buy. At first, Ash had no clue how they were supposed to pay for all of this, until Cynthia once again showed Ash another helpful bit of information regarding his career as a Pokémon trainer.

It turns out that the pokédex served as not only a trainer ID, but also as a way to access a trainer's bank account. Starting out, trainers had $3000 in their account that was used to pay for supplies and other such things. The trainer from then on had to earn their own money, be it from battling other trainers, getting a job, or by winning misc. prizes. When Ash asked how the account kept track of all the money that was gained or lost, Cynthia explained that a division of the Pokémon league, kept records of all trainers, and that each account was linked to the trainer record, and the system kept track of all transactions that occurred.

After explaining the system and ensuring that Ash understood it, Cynthia walked up to the counter and handed her purchase to the clerk. She had heard about the Pokémon that were around the woods and bought herself a half dozen antidotes to be on the safe side, as well as a few paralyz heals and some potions.

"Your total comes to $2400" the clerk said in a nearly emotionless, and clearly bored, tone. Cynthia handed the clerk her pokédex, which the clerk ran across a scanner by the computer at the counter before handing it back to her.

After grabbing her purchase, Cynthia walked over to a bench that was by the door, and started to put the items into her travelling bag while she waited for Ash to finish his own purchase.

Ash had followed the example Cynthia had set, though to a lesser extent, only buying 3 antidotes, a single paralyz heal, two potions. However, Ash also included 5 pokéballs in his purchase, in case he found any particular Pokémon he liked.

The clerk scanned the items and rang up the total "your total comes to $2100" he repeated in the same tone of voice. Ash handed his pokédex over for it to be scanned, and took his purchase after he got the pokédex back.

Walking over to the door and sitting down at the bench by Cynthia, Ash started to put the newly bought items into his backpack. After finishing his organizing, Ash stood up and looked for a sign that could direct him to where he would be able to buy himself some new clothes to finally replace his current damaged ones. After eventually finding the sign, Ash walked into a clothing store that was down near the end of the right side of the market. After looking over the clothes in the store for about 10 minutes, Ash finally realized that he had absolutely no clue what he was looking for, since he hadn't gone clothes shopping before, and he didn't know what was what. While he was lost in thought, Pikachu sat on his trainers shoulder, looking around the store in his infinite boredom.

While Ash was lost in thought, Cynthia walked up behind him, noticing him standing there and not really paying attention to anything. Tapping him on the shoulder Cynthia made her presence known to Ash, "you know I'm kind of hurt." She started as she watched Ash jump from her startling him out of his thoughts. "I would have thought you'd like my opinion" she finished with a smirk as Ash faced her with a bit of an irritated glare on his face. Pikachu couldn't help but chuckle at the ease with which the blonde girl had surprised his trainer.

"Well I don't really have a clue what I should be looking for, since I don't know what would be good for travelling" Ash said as he gestured to all the clothes nearby. "Do you think you might be able to give me a hand with finding some clothes?" for whatever reason the smile on Cynthia's face filled Ash with a sense of dread that he truly had no idea where it came from.

**Later…..**

'This is INSANE!' Ash thought to himself, as he continued to try on clothes that Cynthia offered him. He had been following this process for over an hour, first Cynthia would bring him something to try on, then she would wait for him to change into said clothing, and he would then come out and stand there for a few moments while she looked him over. Overall, the situation brought Ash to a single conclusion 'I'm never going shopping with a girl ever again' he thought. He couldn't understand how she was still so enthusiastic about this; he had started getting worn out within 10 minutes of this.

"Try this on, it's the last thing that I found" Cynthia said snapping him out of his thoughts, while she handed him a few clothes. Thankfully they hadn't spent the last hour just looking over clothes, but they had found a few things that did seem to suit Ash, and had spent most of the time finding clothes so that he had more than a single outfit to wear for all occasions.

Ash walked out with the last few pieces of clothing on, and stood there for Cynthia to give him her opinion." Well the shirt doesn't look to bad, but the jeans seem to baggy." She said. Ash may have found it to be exhausting to go through all of this, but he knew that Cynthia wasn't trying to make things difficult.

In the end, Ash walked out with three similar outfits, one of which he was wearing so he could get out of his old clothes. He was wearing a dark grey t-shirt with sleeves that reached a little past his biceps. In place of his old jeans, he was wearing a pair of darker pants that were somewhat darker than grey but not quite black. Over his t-shirt, Ash wore a light dark blue coat with a somewhat thin stripe of black running along the sleeves that reached to just above his wrist. One of the few things that ash still kept from his old outfit was that he still wore a hat. Walking towards the counter, a hat had caught Ash's eye, and he bought it regardless of what would be said about it. The hat itself wasn't anything particularly special, it was a black cap with a white band around the front of it, again it wasn't anything special, but Ash wanted it regardless.

Walking out of the store, Ash glanced at the watch that Cynthia had all but forced him to buy, on account of it doubling as a compass due to his terrible sense of direction. He noticed that it was now just after ten, which left them with very little to do since they weren't planning to leave just yet, so with nothing better to do, Ash, Cynthia and Pikachu began to look around the town to kill time.

Shortly after they were looking around, Ash noticed a couple of people that were standing around a building, which after looking at the building itself, he realized it was a school.

"Alright, pay attention to the battle, I'll be asking for observations afterwards" came the voice of a woman standing in front of the people that were now confirmed to be students. At the talk of a battle, the two trainers' curiosity was peaked, so they made their way over to the crowd to observe the class. "Now Alex, if you'd please join me on the field." The teacher said to the man that was standing next to her.

The woman looked to be in about her mid twenties and had dark brown hair that went to her shoulder blades in a neatly trimmed haircut. She wore what one would expect on a standard teacher, a grey suit that would look exactly the same if one were to set it next to a dozen others like it. The man standing next to her looked around twenty, and had slightly messy black hair, he wore a similar uniform to the teacher, but had a nametag the marked him as an assistant. Overall, the two were fairly standard.

"Uh…well you see…" the man, Alex, stuttered nervously, struggling to look the woman in the eye.

"Yes?" the woman said in a calm tone.

"Well my Pokémon are all injured at the moment from an accident while I was training them yesterday" Alex said somewhat hurriedly.

Sighing, the woman looked at Alex "and you didn't think to tell me this before class why?" she asked, starting to look angrier as the conversation went on.

"It slipped my mind when I took them to the Pokémon center." Alex said

"Well, see to it that it that it doesn't happen again" the woman said, sighing again the woman began to think over what to do now. 'I have everything put together, but I can't have the demonstration without someone else to assist me with it.' She then noticed Ash and Cynthia standing by the class 'bingo'. "excuse me" she started, when she had their attention she continued "you two aren't part of the class, so I was wondering if you might be able to help me with the demonstration that we're supposed to be holding" at this she shot an annoyed look at her assistant.

"Well, I don't see why not" Cynthia said, after she started thinking it over.

"Excellent, my name is Helen Frost" the woman introduced herself.

"I'm Cynthia Shirona" Cynthia introduced herself.

"My name's Ash Ketchum" Ash introduced himself.

"It's nice to meet you" Helen said sincerely "would one of you join me on the field out here?"

"Ash, you should go" Cynthia said

"Wait why me?" Ash said, slightly panicked.

"This will be a good chance for you to get practice as a trainer" Cynthia said calmly.

At this point, Ash knew he was cornered, since there was no real flaw in Cynthia's logic. "All right" he said in a resigned tone.

Stepping out onto the field, Ash stood next to Helen, unsure of what to do at the moment. He noticed that the class was comprised of little kids that looked to be just starting trainer school. Following the instructions given by Helen, Ash walked over to one of the edges of the field, while Helen took her place at the other.

"All right Ash, what we're going to be doing is showing the class what they will be doing in a battle." Helen said, slightly louder so he could here from the other side of the field. Seeing Ash's nod of confirmation, she continued "we're going to have a simple one on one battle alright?" Again Ash nodded.

"I'll be the judge of this match" Alex spoke up from the sideline. "This will be a match between Ash Ketchum of…" he trailed off since he didn't know where Ash was from.

"Pallet town" Ash stated simply.

"Ash Ketchum of Pallet town" Alex finished his earlier statement. "And Helen Frost of viridian city" he said introducing Helen. " this will be a one on one Pokémon battle, with no time limit, and will be decided when one side is no longer able to continue" Alex finished.

"Pikachu you're up" Ash said looking at the mouse on his shoulder.

"Pi" Pikachu responder as he jumped from Ash's shoulder onto the battlefield, and waited for their opponent to reveal their Pokémon.

"Alright then" Helen said as she pulled out a pokéball, "go Machop" she said as she tossed the ball into the air.

The ball opened and released a flash of light that began to take the shape of the Pokémon inside. When the light finished taking its form, there stood a small humanoid that stood at around 2'07". It had grayish blue skin and three rip-like stripes on its torso. It had a tail that looked especially like a reptile, which was further shown with its somewhat lizard-like features on its face. On the top of its head were three crests that reached from the back of its head to its forehead.

Taking the opportunity, Ash took out his pokédex and pointed it at the Pokémon to scan it.

"**Machop, the superpower Pokémon, machop loves to work out and build its muscles, it is never satisfied, even if it trains hard all day long. It passes time by lifting boulders." **The red box said as it read the information to Ash. Ash didn't like the sound of that at all.

"We'd better keep our distance Pikachu" He said after the pokédex finished reading the information off.

"Pika" Pikachu nodded at this, since it was clear that Machop was very strong

"The battle between Pikachu and Machop will now begin" Alex said loudly as he took a step further back from the battlefield.

"Machop, use karate chop" Helen ordered immediately.

The fighting Pokémon rushed towards Pikachu with its arm flexed, showing it ready to swing for a lot of damage.

"Pikachu dodge it" Ash stated, which the mouse complied with by jumping to the side as Machop brought down it's left arm in a chop.

"Machop, use low kick" Helen ordered.

Standing up, machop started to run towards Pikachu again and when it got close to him Ash ordered Pikachu to dodge and use quick attack. Pikachu again jumped out of the way, and on landing, rushed towards machop to hit it with a full body tackle.

"Machop counter with karate chop!" Helen shouted. Machop spun around with its left arm prepped for another chop, which was unavoidable this time. The chop connected with Pikachu's face, and sent it flying through the air with a cry of pain.

"Pikachu, you okay?" Ash asked his Pokémon, wanting to make sure he was okay to continue. Upon receiving the all clear from Pikachu, Ash made another order "Pikachu use thundershock!" with a spark of electricity, the mouse fired a miniature lightning bolt at Machop. Due to the speed and suddenness of the attack, Machop had no time to even try to dodge, taking the bolt head on, and the superpower Pokémon cried out in pain as electricity ran through its body.

After the attack was over, Helen decided to take a different approach, "Machop use focus energy" she commanded. Complying with the order, machop closed its eyes, and slowly, to Ash and Pikachu's surprise, the muscles on Machop's body slowly began to pump themselves up more.

Not wanting to run any further risk, Ash decided act, "Pikachu use thundershock again". Once again, the electric mouse fired off the bolt of electricity. To the surprise of both trainer and Pokémon however, Machop showed hardly any reaction this time.

"Sorry Ash but we're more prepared this time" Helen said with a slight chuckle. "Machop, use karate chop once more" she ordered. The superpower Pokémon's eyes snapped open and it charged at Ash and Pikachu, significantly faster than before.

"Pikachu dodge it!" Ash yelled in panic. Pikachu barely managed to dodge the swift chop from the fighting type, but both noticed with growing horror as the attack struck the ground it left behind cracks a small ways out from a hand shaped indent where Machop's arm had struck. Realizing the risk that Machop presented now, Ash called out to Pikachu "thunder wave!"

Hearing the order that had been given, Helen's eyes widened already knowing that they would have little to no chance of victory if that hit. "Machop, before it's finished, hit it with karate chop" with a grunt, the fighting type rushed towards Pikachu with its arm raised to deliver a final chop.

"PIIIKAAAACHUUUUU!" the mouse yelled as it released the electricity at the last second, causing Machop's eyes to widen as it was dropped almost instantly due to the close proximity to the charge.

Looking at his opponent, Pikachu could only sigh in relief at how close he had cut it there. Ash was equally relieved at his friend managing to pull off the attack 'that was way too close' he thought as he looked at how close Machop had gotten before falling down.

Alex looked over to Helen, and she gave him a nod. Taking the confirmation he raised his right hand "Machop is unable to Battle, Pikachu wins. The winner is Ash Ketchum from Pallet town." He declared.

The class cheered at the exciting match, bringing Ash and Pikachu both back to the present, as they had forgotten that they were doing a demonstration for a class.

Helen walked over to Machop and raised the pokéball "return Machop" she said, which was followed by a thin red beam connecting the pokéball to the Pokémon. Machop disappeared in a flash of red, and Helen put the pokéball away. "Thank you for your help with the demonstration Ash" Helen spoke up.

Ash blushed lightly from the comment, "it was no trouble at all Helen that was a tough match though" he said with Pikachu agreeing completely.

Helen smiled at the trainer and Pokémon duo, "that may be, but you really helped me out there." She said sincerely. "I would like to have a rematch though some time in the future" she spoke, her eye's taking on a slightly competitive gleam.

"Definitely" Ash said with a smile on his face. "Well we need to be going on our way" he said as Pikachu resumed his favorite spot on his trainer's shoulder. "I'm glad I was able to help you out though" he said before walking over to Cynthia who had a smirk on her face. "What?" Ash asked seeing the smirk.

"And you were nervous" Cynthia said with a small laugh.

"Well I did almost lose that match" Ash said as they started walking towards the forest to resume their trip.

"That may be the case, but you are better than you give yourself credit for." Cynthia said as they walked past the border of the town and entered the forest.

**A/N that's all for chapter 4**

**I never really thought I'd say this but I think I can safely say that I know what writer's block feels like. I really wanted to continue this but I didn't have anything that came to mind when I tried to type something for a while.**

**Also, I'd like to know what needs work, so as always, constructive criticism is welcome so long as it isn't just people flaming me.**

**If anybody would be willing to beta this, I'd really be grateful for it. Because honestly I think it could only turn out better.**

**Thanks for reading**

**Akkeiton**


	5. viridian forest

A/N I honestly had no idea that I would get as many views as I did from the last chapter and it really is cool to see that people like this. This story is now being betaed (I really don't have a clue how else to spell that) by Uranium235.

Reviews

Brother of kane - I honestly would love some input on what you think would be good ideas for Ash to Capture, I'm making a poll in the near future.

Allie cat - i really want to have Brock travel with them, but if that were the case i'd need someone to write his lines when he is flirting cause i have no idea how to go about doing so.

lightningblade49 - honestly the thing with is because the fact that they started out dumb, but became genius criminals in unova bothered me, since i think that they would have been killed by Giovanni if they were that incompetent so i wanted to make them more like members of a criminal organization.

thanks for the reviews

Disclaimer – I don't see why I need to keep restating the obvious, but I don't own Pokémon.

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

"Insert words here" machine voice

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

Ch 5 Viridian forest (i have no better ideas at the moment)

* * *

While walking down the path through viridian city, Ash couldn't help but admire the forest around him. Even though he'd gone through the woods after leaving Pallet town, he never really got much time to pay attention to how much livelier the outdoors were when compared to cities and towns that he was used to.

All around them there were sounds of movement, such as the bird Pokémon flying around the forest. There were even some larger bug Pokémon that were watching them, such as a few Butterfree, and even a few wary Beedrill that were keeping an eye on them.

"You might want to keep an eye on the path Ash." Cynthia said, bringing Ash's attention back to her and the trail they were walking down.

"I don't see what the big deal is; the path is completely flaAA…" Ash started to comment, when he tripped over a tree root that was sticking up slightly over the ground. The sudden feeling of his leg being caught, brought Ash tumbling down towards the forest floor, face first.

Pikachu, being the ever loyal friend he was, abandoned ship as he saw the ground moving up to meet him and his trainer. Less than three seconds after leaving his resting place, Pikachu watched his trainer face-plant onto the dirt. Again, in a great show of loyalty, Pikachu proceeded to fall over laughing at his friend's misfortune.

Spitting out a small mouthful of dirt, Ash turned to Pikachu with a glare, "Thanks, and yeah I'm fine." he said as he stood up.

Watching the antics of both trainer and Pokémon, Cynthia couldn't help but smile at the scene the two were making. She really was glad that she finally had someone else to travel with, silently praying for more moments to laugh about like this in the future.

When Ash was about half way to standing, he noticed a green little worm start crawling down the tree not too far ahead of him. "Huh, wonder what that is." he thought aloud as he grabbed the pokédex to discover the identity of the green worm.

"Caterpie, the worm Pokémon. Its short feet are tipped with suction pads that enable it to tirelessly climb slopes and walls. For protection, it releases a horrible stench from the antennae on its head to drive away enemies." Dexter spoke in his monotone mechanical voice as he read the information to Ash, who proceeded to put away the red box.

Seeing the Pokémon crawling towards him, Ash was slightly surprised at how calm the worm Pokémon was, considering he was far bigger than it.

'I think I know where this is going.' Cynthia thought with a small smile as she watched the interaction between Ash and the Pokémon. She knew that there were plenty of cases where a Pokémon decided to follow a trainer, these usually resulting in said trainer often capturing said Pokémon. The fact that this Caterpie seemed to take a liking to Ash didn't seem to really surprise her, since bug Pokémon were often looked at as being weak by a lot of trainers.

Like Cynthia, Ash also knew about the general view of bug Pokémon; it often reminded him of how a lot of people would look at him when he competed with Gary growing up. Ash had always been the one everybody expected to lose all the competitions with Gary, since he was the grandson of the great professor Oak.

As the worm Pokémon came to a stop in front of Ash, it looked up at him with curious eyes, seemingly examining him. After a few moments of staring at him, Caterpie crawled over to Ash and nuzzled its head into his pant leg.

"I guess that's the best confirmation I'll ever get." Ash said as he watched the little Pokémon. "Hey Caterpie?" he started, getting the Pokémon's attention he continued "I was wondering if you might like to tag along with Pikachu and I?" he asked.

Hearing the offer, Caterpie stood up very straight, he'd heard about how trainers would help a Pokémon get a lot stronger. 'If I go with him, I'm sure to become a Butterfree someday!' he thought to himself, he then proceeded to look up at Ash, this time with pleading eyes and nodded his head.

"All right then." Ash said, taking out a pokéball. 'No need to be harsh about it I guess.' he thought as he tapped the bug so as not to hurt it. Caterpie was then sucked into the ball, which prompted the button on the ball to flash red, which would normally be followed by shaking, but the button flashed once before making a ding noise to signal the successful capture.

Realizing what had just happened, Ash picked up the pokéball and held it up high with a smile on his face "I just caught a Caterpie!" he yelled in obvious joy.

Cynthia made no effort to hide how happy she was for her friend's achievement. Sure, it wasn't anything too big, simply a Caterpie that had joined Ash of its own free will, but it was something that Ash had every right to be happy about. After all, every trainer had the right to be excited about their first capture, she certainly had been.

Ash's excitement was put on hold by a beep from the pokédex, which he then took out and opened. The pokédex had just finished processing the information on Caterpie a few seconds after Ash had opened it up.

"Pokémon capture confirmed

Species: Caterpie

Gender: male

Height: 1'01"

Weight: 7 lbs.

Attacks: tackle, string shot

Ability: shield dust" Dexter said as he listed off the information on the newly caught Caterpie.

"Ability?" Ash asked confusedly. He'd never heard the term come up before, even during his time in trainer school. Hoping to learn about just what the term meant, Ash sent a questioning glance towards Cynthia, hoping she knew something about the term.

Seeing the question, Cynthia figured it would be a good topic to cover, since she had agreed to help Ash to become a better trainer. "Well, abilities are actually fairly recent discoveries." she started as she thought about how best to explain them. "The idea behind them was first proposed by Prof. Birch over in Hoenn, but was confirmed when the top researchers around got together to look over it. Since it was only recently confirmed, the trainer schools haven't started talking about them yet."

"Okay, that explains why I've never heard of them before now, but what are they?" Ash asked as he noticed her explanation dying down, giving him the chance to question a bit further.

After a few moments of thought, Cynthia started explaining again; "Well, abilities are just that, abilities the Pokémon can naturally use during battle to give themselves an edge. For example, Shield Dust protects the Pokémon that has it from moves that have an extra effect, such as lowering defenses or paralyzing the target."

Understanding the subject much better than before, Ash decided that he would look over abilities at some point later on, before he clipped Caterpie's pokéball onto his belt. Pikachu proceeded to return to his usual spot on Ash's shoulder and the group set off down the path again, with Ash making sure to watch the trail much more closely this time around.

Later…

After walking for roughly twenty minutes, Ash, Cynthia and Pikachu walked into a clearing where they saw a boy that looked to be slightly older than Ash standing in it.

Looking over the boy, they noticed that he was wearing a suit of armor that resembled a samurai, while he had a bug catching net slung over his shoulder. Seeing the two of them approach, the boy waited for a few moments before he decided to speak up.

"Are either of you from Pallet town?" he asked as the two stopped a short distance from him.

"That would be me." Ash said. He was somewhat surprised that someone would be waiting for him out here, especially when he didn't do anything to warrant such attention.

"I challenge you to Pokémon battle!" the boy declared, shocking both Ash and Cynthia at the sheer suddenness of the statement.

"I have no problem battling you, but why were you waiting for me in particular?" Ash said, now very confused at what was going on here.

"Over the last few days I have battled three trainers, all coming from Pallet town." The boy started. "And each time I have been soundly defeated…" At his finishing statement, both trainers noticed a somewhat downtrodden look on his face. "But to my shock I have been given a chance to battle one last time, and I have been waiting for you to arrive here."

"Well then I'm happy to battle you… uh…" Ash had no clue what to call the boy since neither had introduced themselves.

"My name is John Tori, though as of late I've taken to being called Samurai." the now named John said politely.

"Well then John, my name is Ash Ketchum." Ash returned the greeting and offered a hand to John.

"Well then Ash, how does a two on two battle sound to you?" John asked. Receiving a nod of confirmation, he walked over to the right side of the clearing and waited for Ash to take his place on the other.

Taking the initiative when Ash was standing across from him, John grabbed a pokéball from one of his pockets and threw it into the air "Metapod, go!"

As the ball released the Pokémon, it began to take the shape of a cocoon. After it finished forming the cocoon shape, Ash noticed that it was green and had an almost expressionless face. Figuring that scanning it couldn't hurt, he took out Dexter.

"Metapod, the cocoon Pokémon. Metapod is the evolved form of Caterpie, it prepares for evolution by hardening its shell as much as possible to protect its soft body. It quietly endures hardships while awaiting evolution." As Dexter finished reciting the information, Ash knew that Metapod would take a while to bring down, if it was as sturdy as the pokédex said.

"Pikachu you're up first." Ash said, as his starter Pokémon hopped down to await orders.

Taking the opportunity, Ash ordered the first move. "Pikachu, quick attack!" at the command, the mouse charged at Metapod and prepared to slam into it.

"Metapod use Harden!" John commanded. At first glance, the Pokémon didn't make any move at all, but if one were to look closer, they would notice that Metapod's entire body had tensed up to absorb the majority of the impact. On contact, Pikachu and Ash both were surprised that the attack had next to no effect on it.

On the side of the field, Cynthia noticed that Ash was starting to panic at his ineffective attack and was waiting to see how he would cope with John's Pokémon. 'If he can't take out that Metapod this battle is done.' she thought, since the only reason for using a Pokémon such as Metapod would be to exhaust the opponent.

While Cynthia was thinking on the sideline, Ash was going over what little he knew about Metapod. 'Okay so it hardens its body to protect itself…' at this he wanted to smack himself in the face. 'Of course it would be able to take quick attack head on with no problem, what was I thinking?" Thinking over his options he noticed that Metapod hadn't moved at all since being released. 'Why hasn't he counter attacked yet?' he thought to himself, which made him realize that there wasn't any real way for it to move to counter attack in the first place. "Pikachu use Thundershock!" Ash yelled. Pikachu followed the order by releasing a bolt of electricity that flew towards Metapod.

"Use Harden!" John called quickly, hoping to protect Metapod from the attack. Like before, Metapod stiffened its body, but this time it noticeably flinched in pain when hit by the Thundershock. "Metapod return." John called, which surprised Ash, as well as Metapod. Seeing the look on Ash's face, John sighed and started to explain. "All Metapod knows how to do is Harden, it doesn't make sense to fight a battle that is already lost, so I forfeit Metapod's match."

After he finished explaining, Ash nodded in understanding, since it would just be cruel to keep Metapod out since he had figured out a way around its defense. Ash could sympathize with John since he'd never want to hurt his Pokémon intentionally.

"All right, now for my second Pokémon, go Pinsir!" John said as he threw a second pokéball that started to take a much larger shape. The Pokémon that stood before Ash and Pikachu made them both slightly nervous due to its appearance. The Pokémon stood at just under five foot and had the appearance of a massive stag beetle. The most intimidating feature of it being the massive pincer like horns covered in small barbs that stood on its head. Ash took Dexter out and pointed it at the beetle somewhat shakily.

"Pinsir, the stag beetle Pokémon. This Pokémon grips its prey with its pincers until the prey is torn in half. What it can't tear, it tosses far." Hearing the information on the pokédex, Ash's eyes widened in horror as he imagined Pinsir going through with the aforementioned action on poor Pikachu. Pikachu was not better off, since his ears picked up the information, and needless to say he wasn't happy about it.

'What did I do to deserve this? I swear someone out there has it in for me!' the mouse ranted in his head.

While both of the two were frozen in thought, John figure out what the problem was. He knew about the brutal reputation that Pinsir had so he spoke up to dispel the worry that Pikachu and Ash were showing, "You don't have to worry Ash. Pinsir knows when enough is enough, so you don't have to worry about Pikachu getting mortally wounded." he said loudly so that the trainer and Pokémon would hear what he was saying.

Sighing in relief, Ash nodded and returned his focus to the battle and gave Pikachu an order "Pikachu use Thundershock!" Pikachu was happy to comply, as long as he didn't have to get to close to Pinsir, and released the electric attack again.

The attack made a direct hit on Pinsir, and made it flinch, but it took the attack and stayed standing. "Our turn, Pinsir use Vicegrip!" John said, which was followed by the stag beetle rushing towards Pikachu with the horns on its head spread apart to grab the mouse. When Pikachu tried to comply with the order to dodge the move, Pinsir's left arm shot out and grabbed the electric mouse. As Pikachu began to struggle to escape, John gave the order for a move called Seismic Toss. Pinsir replied by jumping into the air before coming down with Pikachu held before it.

As the two Pokémon landed in the clearing, they kicked up a fair amount of dust due to the impact of the attack. When the dust cleared, Pikachu was seen lying on the ground with his eyes closed and completely unconscious.

Ash walked over to Pikachu, since he knew that as long as it was possible, Pikachu would fight to stay outside of a pokéball. Picking up the electric mouse, Ash walked over to Cynthia, she took Pikachu and carefully held the little Pokémon while Ash walked over to his place on the battlefield.

"Thanks for waiting." Ash said as he stood across from John and Pinsir.

"No problem, it's good to see a trainer that cares for their Pokémon." John said. "Now if you'd send out your second Pokémon so we can finish this please."

Grabbing Caterpie's pokéball, Ash spoke up, "No problem, Caterpie I choose you!" In a flash of white, the little green worm appeared in the clearing.

Caterpie, upon looking at Pinsir, for lack of a better word, freaked out. He knew he would be fighting other Pokémon that were bigger than him, but a PINSIR of all things!? Ash immediately felt guilty when he saw Caterpie's reaction, "Come on buddy, just do your best. That's all I'm asking for." he said softly. Caterpie, hearing the trust that Ash was showing him, realized that he wanted to do everything he could to try and win this for him. Mustering up his courage, Caterpie stared down Pinsir, ready to act on a moment's notice if he was ordered to.

Smirking at the bond the two were showing, John decided to start the battle again, "Pinsir use Vicegrip!" At the command, Pinsir charged at the small bug type with the intent to grab it.

"Caterpie, dodge it with String Shot!" Ash yelled. The worm Pokémon spat out a stream of silk that hit one of the trees, and proceeded to pull himself out of the way. Seeing the way that Caterpie moved when using String Shot brought a memory to Ash.

* * *

Flashback (first one ever)

Ash was walking around Prof. Oak's ranch, visiting the Pokémon that trainers left there in the old man's care. The school he went to had just finished lessons for the day, so Ash, with little to do after going home to check in with his mother, decided to visit the professor. Upon arriving at the lab, Ash couldn't find the professor so he asked one of the assistants, and was told that he was outside looking over some of the Pokémon.

When Ash finally found the professor he was taking care of a bruised Pokémon that looked like it had gotten into a fight. "Professor?" Ash asked.

"Oh hello Ash. Is school over for the day then?" the professor said while he continued to make sure the Pokémon was alright.

"Yeah, I figured I'd come over to play with the Pokémon and visit you." Ash said with a smile on his face.

"Well it's nice to see you." the old man said kindly. He often thought of Ash as a second grandson with how often he'd come to see him or talk to him.

"What happened to the Pokémon?" Ash asked, seeing that Prof. Oak was almost finished treating the injuries.

"Well, one of the trainers recently sent me a Ponyta that has a bit of an anger problem, and it keeps picking fights with the other Pokémon." This surprised Ash, since he'd seen a few Ponyta around the ranch, and they were much smaller than the Pokémon that the professor was currently treating. When he voiced his thoughts, the professor chuckled and started to explain, "Well that may be the case, but I've noticed that this Ponyta is much faster than the average one." Seeing that Ash was confused at this he continued to explain, "Let's say I were to hit two rocks together, one being bigger than the other." Getting a nod of understanding from the boy he continued, "The bigger rock will always do more than the little one. However, if I were to let the smaller rock build up speed, then when the two hit the smaller rock will hit harder because of the momentum."

Thinking over this, Ash eventually managed to put what he was just told into words he could understand. "So, if something is moving really fast, then when it stops, it will be like something bigger hit the thing?"

Smiling at the way that the young boy put it, Oak nodded his head. "Yes that's right, Ash" With that he finished treating the Pokémon and put away his tools, leaving Ash to go and play.

Seeing that the conversation was over, Ash ran off to go play with the Pokémon around the ranch.

Flashback end...

* * *

'I really don't know how that reminded me of that conversation, but I'm glad that it did. Maybe now Caterpie has a chance of beating Pinsir.' Ash thought to himself, working out a strategy in his head to give Caterpie the advantage. "Caterpie use string shot again!" Ash ordered, causing the bug Pokémon to shoot another stream of silk and started to pull himself to the other edge of the clearing. 'Almost there…' Ash thought as Caterpie started to get closer to Pinsir, until he was almost at the stag beetle and Ash yelled out, "Use Tackle on Pinsir!" This order surprised everyone in the clearing.

As he was flying through the air, Caterpie heard the order and slightly tucked himself in to make the most of his tiny size. To the shock of everyone, excluding Ash, Caterpie knocked back Pinsir a fair distance, causing its eyes to widen in shock at the pain from such a tiny Pokémon.

John took a moment to realize what had happened. "He used the momentum from String Shot to power up Tackle…" he said quietly to himself.

Cynthia however, was surprised. 'He thought of something like that on the fly? And he's only been traveling for a week?' She was certain that Ash would make quite a name for himself in time.

Seeing that Pinsir had recovered, John ordered another Vicegrip, which to his irritation was dodged easily. 'I knew I should have taught Pinsir some other moves.' He was regretting his decision to post pone teaching Pinsir new moves. As it was, he would have to get lucky to land a hit on Caterpie thanks to its tiny size. Seeing only one chance for him to win, he made a decision to use his only other attack and called, "Focus Energy!"

Ash remembered what happened to Machop when it used Focus Energy, and knew he couldn't let Pinsir finish or his defeat would be all but assured. "Caterpie, hit Pinsir with string shot!" Sensing the urgency in Ash's voice, Caterpie hit Pinsir with one last stream of silk, and pulled himself towards Pinsir while it was still focusing. "Finish it with Tackle!" he yelled in triumph as Caterpie managed to close the distance between the two and landed a crushing Tackle on the unprepared stag beetle.

Pinsir stood still for a moment before he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, clearly unconscious.

John was amazed by the fact that his Pinsir had been beaten by a Caterpie, and a young one at that. This brought him to a conclusion as he compared Ash to the other trainers that he had battled from pallet town. 'The others may become good trainers, but Ash seems to be born for this. Saying he'll be great seems to be an understatement.' "Pinsir return." Returning the knocked out Pokémon to his Pokéball, John made his way over to Ash and the two shook hands. "Thanks for the great match Ash."

"It was mostly luck I think, but I'm really proud of Caterpie for his hard work." Ash said modestly while he smiled at the Pokémon that was standing beside him. Suddenly to his surprise, Caterpie began covering himself with the silk he was using for string shot earlier. At first he didn't know what was happening, until he noticed that the shape that Caterpie was starting to take was that of a Metapod. 'Caterpie's evolving!' he thought, proud of his Pokémon.

Before long, the cocoon finished forming, and Metapod was finished evolving and stood before Ash, John, Cynthia, and Pikachu. "Met?" the cocoon Pokémon asked in a quiet voice, which prompted Pikachu, who had recovered from earlier to an extent, to make his way over to his new friend.

Cynthia noticed as she walked over to John and Ash that Ash hadn't said much on Caterpie's evolution. 'I guess he hasn't seen evolution firsthand before. Strange, considering he lives around Prof. Oak.' she thought. As she came to a stop by the two trainers, she noticed the look of pride and joy that Ash was sending at Metapod, which brought a smile to her face.

After a few moments, Ash walked over to his new Metapod, which felt somewhat odd to say since he'd only just gotten used to having a Caterpie with him. Kneeling down, Ash smiled at Metapod and put a hand on the top of the cocoon Pokémon's head. "Thanks for the win buddy. You did it!" He started off normally and finished with a louder voice, not quite shouting but still could be heard through the clearing.

"We'd better get the Pokémon that were battling treated Ash." Cynthia said, which brought Ash back to the present.

"I have a house nearby that I keep my supplies in for my training." John said as he walked towards the edge of the clearing that he had been standing in front of when the three had first crossed paths.

"Okay, but… uh…" Ash started, and brought the attention of the other two trainers to him, both giving him a questioning look.

"Yes?" Cynthia said, for some reason feeling the need to face palm.

"Which way did we come from?" This made John look at him with a look that said "WTF?" while Cynthia gave into her now understandable urge to face palm.

"You didn't move more than to go over to that edge of the clearing, how did you lose track of where we entered from?" Cynthia asked while thinking to herself 'He said his sense of direction sucks but this is worse than I could have ever imagined.'

"Well, I kind of got lost in the moment with the battle and wasn't really paying attention." Ash said while scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

"Just follow us" Cynthia said while sighing. With that the three trainers started walking off to start healing their injured or tired Pokémon.

After about 15 minutes or so, the three came to a small log cabin in a cleared area of the woods. "Well, here's my cabin." John said as he stopped at the door. Walking in, they noticed that there were a lot of things pertaining to insects, such as books, bug catching nets and other things.

Walking over to a cupboard in a corner of the room, John removed a few potions and grabbed a small diamond shaped item that was completely unfamiliar to Ash. Releasing the Metapod from earlier, John proceeded to apply the potion to the injuries from Pikachu's Thundershock.

Ash noticed the look on Metapod's face as John applied the potion, "What's with Metapod? It looks kind of irritated." he asked Cynthia.

"Well" she started, "we haven't figured out why, but no matter what Pokémon is treated with them, they always cause some kind of irritation such as stinging or something like that." She explained to which Ash nodded.

"So what's the little diamond?" Ash asked after a moment's thought.

"Well that's a Revive. It's a pill that acts kind of like smelling salts for humans, while working somewhat like a potion to revitalize a Pokémon." Cynthia explained again.

After John had finished treating Metapod, he returned it and released Pinsir, who still seemed like he'd be out for a few hours. Grabbing the Revive, he held it in front of the stag beetle, which caused it to stir somewhat and make a motion, not unlike when one would take in a smell. After this, John placed the little diamond shaped pill in the stag beetle's mouth, which it then proceeded to chew and swallow. After swallowing it, its eyes opened and it stood back up.

After looking at the bug type, Cynthia figured that it was still somewhat younger than most of their kind was when in the ownership of a trainer. "Your Pinsir is a bit younger than most that trainers are in possession of." she said to John.

"Well, Pinsir was actually hatched from an egg that was given to me by my father. He figured it would be better for me to raise the Pokémon from scratch so I would be able to work well with it." John explained. "Since Pinsir is my first Pokémon, I decided I wanted to be a master of bug types one day." he continued.

Ash then was reminded of his dream when he started his journey, to be a Pokémon master. Now that he thought about it, he had no clue how to go about doing that. Seeing John so sure of his goal and having it set so clearly for him to pursue, it made Ash want to rethink his goals, he still wanted to become a Pokémon master for sure, but he was brought down to earth by the incident with the Spearow. 'I'll think about it a little later I guess.' he decided.

After he was done with his thoughts for the moment, Ash was handed a potion by John who he looked at for a moment.

"For Pikachu." he simply stated.

"Oh." Ash said as he gave a grateful smile to the aspiring bug master. Walking over to Pikachu he crouched down to the little Pokémon and held the potion at the ready for a moment, before turning back to the other two trainers. "What exactly am I looking for to apply the potion to?" this question prompted a sweat drop from both trainers while Ash waited for an answer.

Pikachu looked at his trainer and sighed at him. 'I hope that he gets better about these things…' he thought, then added 'And I PRAY that his stupidity isn't contagious!' After that he was satisfied with his thoughts.

Sighing, Cynthia decided she might as well help Ash with this. "Pay attention alright, I'm only doing this to show you what you should be looking for." she said, to which she received a confirmation. She spent the next few minutes treating the little mouse Pokémon while making sure to occasionally scratch him behind the ears to relieve some of the obvious irritation.

After treating the mouse Pokémon, Ash and Cynthia both said their farewells to John, with Ash and John agreeing to a rematch in the future. The two then set off down the path, with Cynthia ensuring that she was leading them due to Ash's impossibly bad sense of direction, which she still wondered about since the boy had a compass AND map; how he could get so hopelessly lost made no sense to her. She gave up trying to figure these things out and went back to enjoying her new journey with Ash and Pikachu.

While the two trainers walked, they were also being watched by three pairs of eyes that held nothing but ill intent, and were waiting for a moment to strike at the two while they trekked through viridian forest.

**A/N that's it for chapter 5.**

**I was shocked with how many people I got to start reading this with the last chapter, and honestly it is really cool to know I have made something people are enjoying.**

**In regards to the capitalization, I really am trying to get that fixed, but word is only listing off a few of the obvious problems with that.**

**As stated in my response to Brother of Kane's review, I'm going to be making a poll on my profile, I will be using it later, but I wanted you all to decide on it. I am going to be giving Ash a legendary down the line but I will only be giving him one as far as I know. it will be a two part poll.**

**As always, I'd like to know what needs work, since the capitalization is apparently still an issue. Constructive criticism is always welcome as long as it's actually giving advice and not just flaming me.**

**Thanks again to Uranium235 for beta reading this.**

**Thanks for reading,  
**

**Akkeiton**


	6. Not out of the woods yet

**A/N thanks to everyone for the positive feedback, the poll will be going on for a few chapters now and then I'm gonna start the second part to it**

**Reviews**

**Allie cat – the Idea sounds like it would be a really great stand-alone story, but I don't know if I would include it in this, but you might think about starting one at some point. It might work out pretty well.**

Disclaimer – (insert obvious disclaimer about me not owning Pokémon here)

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

**"Insert words here" machine voice**

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

Ch. 6 Not out of the woods yet

"Tree, tree, tree, rock, tree…" Ash continuously muttered as he walked along the path with Cynthia. He knew he was being immature, but he was bored out of his mind. He had known that he wouldn't be having some amazing adventure or some epic battle every step of his journey, but that didn't help with his boredom. Ash had always preferred to be doing something to occupy himself, but at the moment nothing really came to mind.

As Ash continued his muttering about the scenery, Cynthia was struggling to keep from smacking him. 'He's just bored,' she repeated to herself as she tried to relax, 'but he's been doing this for almost an hour.' another part of her mind said.

As Cynthia was about to tell Ash to stop, Pikachu suddenly shouted "PIKA!" which if translated would have been "SQUIRREL!" Both trainers stopped what they were doing and looked at the little Pokémon. While they were staring at him Pikachu was giving them a look that seemed to say "how else would I have gotten him to stop?", causing Cynthia to mentally thank Pikachu for his interference before the three continued walking (or riding on Ash's shoulder in Pikachu's case).

About 10 minutes down the road, the trainers and Pokémon came to a stop as they noticed a tree that was in the middle of the road, which looked fairly big, even for one from a forest. Cynthia was about to release a Pokémon to cut it out of the way before she realized that the tree would take several others down if it was removed without proper equipment. She decided it would be best to move around the tree then report the blocked road to someone later when they get to pewter city.

Telling this to Ash, the two trainers stepped off the bath to go around the massive tree and stepped into the underbrush. What neither one noticed was the marks on the tree that suggested it was cut down.

**10 minutes down the "path" …**

Ash walked through the trees and bushes following Cynthia, but he didn't have a clue where they were going, since there wasn't any sign of the path yet. "Hey Cynthia, how much farther will it be before we are back on the path?" he asked, hoping it would be soon since he had heard about several hives of Beedrill throughout the viridian forest, and he wasn't all that excited about running into one of them.

"It shouldn't be too much further" Cynthia replied as she kept walking, but if Ash could have seen her face, he would have seen her looking around trying to find out where she was. Truthfully, she was kicking herself for thinking it was a good idea to go off the path, since neither she nor Ash had any clue how to navigate the forest itself.

Before long, they came to a clearing, which made Cynthia breathe a sigh of relief to finally be out of the thicker parts of the forest. Ash sent her a confused look when she did this.

"Uh, Cynthia…" Ash started, getting the girl's attention, "are we lost?" As he said this the blonde trainer started to stutter out a denial while she started to have a small blush across her face, which was clearly from embarrassment.

"I know exactly where we're going, the path is just a little further" Cynthia said, while mentally she was crying her eyes out. 'I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE!' she screamed in her head. After she calmed herself down, she looked around the clearing for a moment. "We should take a break, we've been walking for a while" she said before receiving a nod from both Ash and Pikachu.

After sitting down in the clearing and having a bit of rest, Ash noticed a familiar Pokémon that was a little ways into the clearing. It was a tiny bird that stood only a foot tall with cream colored feathers on the bottom side of it, with brown feathers on the top side. It had a crest of its head of both colors. This was a Pidgey, a Pokémon Ash remembered with a large amount of embarrassment due to his first encounter with one.

Pikachu likewise remembered said encounter, with more than a little shame at his actions at the time.

**Flashback (mostly just bits from the first episode, I'm trying to not make it a direct copy paste but anybody that's seen the anime should know what happened)**

Ash was dragging a defiant Pikachu behind him with a clothesline as he walked down the road from pallet town towards route 1. He had been having a lot of problems with the little mouse from the moment he met him, since it had shocked him twice, and humiliated him in front of the sendoff the town had put together for the trainers that were leaving this year.

"Pikachu, are you gonna be this way for the whole trip?" Ash asked as he finally stopped walking to talk to the disobedient Pokémon.

"Pi!" the mouse said while glaring at Ash.

"Is it just because you don't like me?" Ash asked, while he tried to figure out how to work with the Pokémon.

"Pi-ka" the mouse said while he nodded

While Ash continued to try and reason with the mouse, he was hiding the fact the Pikachu's dislike, borderline hatred, of him hurt.

After the two talked back and forth for a little while, Ash decided to remove the clothesline from Pikachu as a show of good faith, though the mouse still openly disliked him.

Ash spotted a Pokémon that was well known a short distance away, and got excited by it. "A Pidgey!" He took the opportunity to scan the Pokémon with his Pokédex like Prof. Oak had said to do. He was rewarded with the small box reading off the info on the bird.

**"Pidgey, the tiny bird Pokémon, Pidgey is common in grassy areas and forests. Because it dislikes fighting, it protects itself by kicking up sand. Pidgey is a perfect target for the beginning Pokémon trainer to test his Pokémon's skills."** The voice of the small box read off the information on Pidgey to Ash.

Ash proceeded to try and capture the bird, but Pikachu refused to battle for Ash and ran over to a tree to watch. Ash then decided to try and catch the Pokémon without the mouse's help, though he was reminded by the Pokédex that in order to capture a Pokémon, one needed to weaken it in battle first. He then proceeded to tackle the bird with a blanket, which resulted in him getting tossed away by a gust attack. The tiny bird flew off, but not before hitting Ash with a sand attack, causing Pikachu to burst into laughter at his trainer's misfortune.

**Flashback end…**

Ash and Pikachu nodded to each other as they decided they would catch the Pidgey in front of them to make up for the embarrassment they suffered from the previous one.

"Pikachu let's go" Ash said, taking care not to scare off Pidgey by being too loud, since the little bird looked like it would fly off if it was scared in any way.

The tiny mouse hopped off Ash's shoulder and was about to charge the tiny bird Pokémon, when a much larger shape flew out of the woods and took its place in between Pikachu and the Pidgey. The bird was much larger than Pidgey, but still somewhat resembled it, though the brown was lighter and the crest and tail feathers were larger and held more color, being somewhat red instead of brown. The bird was more than three times the size of Pidgey, and seemed much more battle ready than its tiny counterpart.

Slightly nervous about the new arrival, Ash pulled out Dexter and scanned the large bird. After a moment, the Pokédex began to read off the information.

**"Pidgeotto, the bird Pokémon and the evolved form of Pidgey, Pidgeotto has outstanding vision. However high it flies, it is able to distinguish the movements of its prey. Unlike the gentler Pidgey, Pidgeotto can be much more dangerous, and should be approached with caution."** The box finished its recitation of the entry on Pidgeotto.

Ash noticed that Pidgeotto hadn't moved since it had arrived, and was currently just watching both him and Pikachu. 'This must be what it meant by outstanding vision' he guessed, since Pidgeotto was clearly waiting for him to make the first move.

"Pikachu, use Thundershock!" Ash started off with a move that he knew would do a lot of damage if it hit.

Pikachu fired off a bolt of electricity, but neither he nor Ash where surprised when Pidgeotto took to the air to dodge the attack. Pikachu was thankful for not hitting the Pidgey, who was now watching from a nearby tree, since it was not involved in the battle anymore.

Pidgeotto stopped as it reached a height that satisfied it, and began to think on how to approach the battle, since it knew that the Pikachu had an advantage over it.

Ash waited for the bird Pokémon to make its move since Pikachu couldn't reach it with Thundershock at the height it was at. He was pushed to act when Pidgeotto came diving down at Pikachu in a quick attack. Before he could react, Pidgeotto slammed into Pikachu and sent the mouse back towards him. Pikachu landed in front of him, but still managed to stand. 'It's faster than I thought' He noted that Pikachu was in fairly good shape for having been hit by the evolved Pokémon. Deciding to make his move Ash made a small strategy in his head that he hoped would work. "Pikachu use Quick Attack!"

The mouse complied and rushed at Pidgeotto, which somewhat shocked the bird since it seemed to be a fairly dumb move to use on a flying type. The bird once again started rising into the air, but was unable to get out of range of Pikachu's next attack

"Pikachu, Thundershock again!" Ash ordered when he saw Pidgeotto start to fly up into the air.

At this point, Pikachu was standing directly under where Pidgeotto had been flying. The bird Pokémon screeched in pain as the electric attack hit it, but it still managed to stay in the air. The bird Pokémon finally managed to get into the air and away from the electric type. Taking the opportunity to think, the bird then began to look down at the mouse it was fighting against.

To the surprise of Ash and Pikachu, Pidgeotto again dive-bombed towards Pikachu, but this time it wasn't using Quick Attack.

From her spot she was watching from, Cynthia's eyes widened as she saw the bird type using a move she recognized fairly well, having it used against her several times and using it herself. She knew that Ash wouldn't recognize the move, or the power behind it, since it wasn't used by wild Pokémon often in Kanto.

The bird Pokémon suddenly vanished from sight, surprising both Ash and Pikachu, who then began to look for it. Pidgeotto revealed itself when it reappeared right in front of Pikachu, before slamming its wings into the little mouse. This action made Pikachu cry out in pain while Ash was unable to do anything for his friend.

The attack was undeniable to Cynthia, she was amazed that a Pokémon in the wild could teach itself a move that normally would require a TM or a move tutor for a trainer owned Pokémon to learn. Having confirmed what the attack was she spoke up; "Ash!" This got said trainer's attention, but he was still trying to keep an eye on Pidgeotto. "The attack it just used is called Aerial Ace." Getting a nod, Ash interrupted her before she could explain the attack.

"Thanks, but I think I should figure out how the move works on my own." The maturity of the statement surprised her, but she felt it was a bit stupid to not take the help she offered at this point.

"Pika!" she was shocked when Pikachu also agreed with Ash.

Pidgeotto was impressed with the way the human handled being given advice that would render its strongest move useless. It was somewhat rare to meet someone who would turn down help in favor of figuring it out themselves. With the way it learned Aerial Ace being a perfect example, since several older members of the flock had offered to help, only to be turned down out of what was probably pride.

Pidgeotto decided to resume the battle with a Quick Attack to get the attention of its opponent. Pikachu dodged the quick attack and returned to standing in front of Ash, awaiting an order.

"Pikachu use Thundershock!" The Pokémon complied and fired a bolt of electricity which Pidgeotto dodged and again was in the air out of range. The bird Pokémon was reluctant to rely on Aerial Ace to win it the match since it hated that it couldn't win without it. This fact made the bird more than a little angry at the situation.

Ash told Pikachu quietly to hold onto a Thundershock, hoping that Pidgeotto couldn't hear him. Pikachu complied and started to charge electricity as he saw Pidgeotto start diving in another Aerial Ace. When Pidgeotto reappeared in front of Pikachu, it was surprised and horrified to see the buildup of electricity on Pikachu's face, which clearly signaled an attack that was sure to hit. But it was too late to stop since Aerial Ace built up too much speed for Pidgeotto to turn. Pikachu fired off the Thundershock as he was hit with the Aerial Ace, causing both Pokémon to drop near instantly. Ash took the opportunity to throw a Pokéball at Pidgeotto. The ball sucked in the bird Pokémon and started to shake for a few moments, then it stopped and the ball dinged to signal capture.

Ash walked over to Pikachu and picked up the injured Pokémon before walking over and picking up the newly caught Pidgeotto. "We did it buddy," he said taking care not to put too much pressure on the injuries.

"Pi-pika" Pikachu said with a smile on his face before he fell asleep.

Cynthia walked over to them and congratulated them on their victory. Mentally, she was making another note on her friend's ability as a trainer, 'That was a good strategy, but just about any trainer could counter it if they were keeping an eye on Pikachu.' She figured she would explain this to Ash later, but she had to figure out how to do so without destroying any confidence he built up as a trainer. "I think we should stay here for the night, maybe we can have Pidgeotto guide us out of the forest in the morning." As she said this, she realized her slip up.

"So then we really were lost this whole time?" Ash said as a smirk started to make its way onto his face.

An embarrassed blush crossed the blonde girl's face, "Uh…" Cynthia tried to figure out how to get herself out of this one.

After a few moments of this, Ash decided they should start setting up camp for the night. "It's no problem, I got a new Pokémon out of all this, but we should set up camp now right?" he said, snapping Cynthia out of her attempts to make an excuse for getting lost.

"Yeah I guess we should," Cynthia said, all too happy to change the subject.

The two trainers then started to set up the camp to sleep for the night. Before long the two had everything set up and were sitting at a small fire that was currently being used by Cynthia to cook something **(A/N try to imagine something because I am a terrible cook)** for dinner. After the food was done cooking, both trainers released their Pokémon for dinner.

Ash noted that Pidgeotto was taking to being captured far better than he expected, which reminded him to read the information regarding said Pokémon from the capture. Taking out Dexter, he pointed the Pokédex at the bird Pokémon and then looked at the information on his newly caught Pokémon.

**Species: Pidgeotto**

**Gender: Female**

**Height: 3'05"**

**Weight: 61 lbs.**

**Attacks: Tackle, Gust, Sand-Attack, Quick Attack, Aerial Ace**

**Ability: Keen Eye**

After having read all the information regarding Pidgeotto, Ash decided to ask Cynthia about Keen Eye since he couldn't find any information on abilities in his Pokédex, 'I'll have to ask Prof. Oak about that when I talk to him again,' he thought before he walked over to Cynthia, who was passing food out to her Pokémon. Waiting until she was done, Ash decided to get her attention, "Cynthia, could you give me a hand with this?" he asked, holding up the Pokédex to show what he was talking about.

"Sure thing Ash," Cynthia said before she walked over to see what he was looking over. Looking over the information, the only thing that she could find that Ash would be curious about would be Keen Eye, since he still didn't know much about abilities. "Keen Eye right?" Receiving a nod she gave a quick explanation, "Keen eye lets Pidgeotto see through things like fog or Smokescreen or anything that makes it hard to see." There really wasn't much to it other than that, but it was still a useful ability nonetheless.

Ash nodded to show that he understood before the two sat down to eat dinner. After finishing their meal, the two trainers and their Pokémon turned in for the night after putting out the fire.

**The next morning…**

Ash woke up to find the sun had already risen, but unlike he usually would see, it had only been up for maybe an hour at most, maybe two. 'I guess Cynthia's sleeping habits are rubbing off on me,' he thought as he got up. Prior to meeting the blonde trainer, Ash had always had a habit of sleeping in as much as he could, usually needing to be shaken out of bed or he would sleep in, his first day as a trainer being an amazing example of this. Cynthia had made a point to wake him up fairly early (by his standards) and had gone to some fairly extreme measures, ranging from a bucket of water (courtesy of Milotic), to having Pikachu shocking him out of bed. They hadn't even been traveling together for a week and he was already picking up the habit of waking up early, if only to avoid whatever wakeup call Cynthia had prepared for him.

Walking out of the tent he slept in, Ash saw Pikachu sitting by Cynthia who was already eating some instant food she had bought for breakfasts. Walking over to the two, Ash pulled out a breakfast bar** (again, I suck with food so just imagine what you want) **and sat down to eat it.

Seeing Ash awake, Cynthia gave a mock sigh of despair, "Now I can't wake you up," she said as she saw Ash pale slightly from whatever idea she might have had, "and I had an idea for Roselia to try too," she finished with a smirk.

Ash knew she was just messing with him now, since she was not the type to be needlessly cruel to others. After finishing their breakfast, the two trainers packed up their respective tents and sleeping bags.

Once the cleanup was finished, Cynthia spoke up, "Okay Ash, you think Pidgeotto could guide us out of the forest?" she asked.

Ash released the bird Pokémon from her Pokéball. "Pidgeotto, could you guide us out of the forest, we kind of got lost before we met up with you," he asked, while the bird Pokémon couldn't help but sweat-drop at the fact she was beaten by someone who had just stumbled upon her while wandering through the forest.

The bird nodded and flew up, making sure to stay within sight of her new trainer, while also being high enough to see which way she was going. Not too far away, she caught sight off the nearby Beedrill hive, which none of them wanted to be anywhere near. Making sure to keep a distance from the hive's territory, the bird began guiding the two trainers out of viridian forest.

**1 hour later…**

"I really do regret not just blowing up that tree back on the path," Cynthia said as she narrowly avoided getting smacked by a low hanging branch.

The last hour had been steadily getting more and more tedious, as the brush wouldn't make up its mind about being too thick, or too thin. Leading to them either tripping or getting hit by branches (most of this happening to Ash) that were along the makeshift path they were following.

Just as Ash was about to make his own comment (a.k.a. complaint) the two noticed that the end of the forest was finally in sight. Both finally sighing in relief to finally be leaving the forest, they began to make their way out of the brush and into the clearing that was at the end of the forest. Just as the two trainers were about to exit the clearing, one of the smaller trees on the side of the clearing started to topple over. Cynthia noticed the tree starting to fall, and grabbed Ash and dragged him out of the way behind her, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the now fallen tree.

"So close," spoke up a familiar voice, which made both of the young trainers tense in apprehension. From the tree line, James came walking out with his Beedrill following behind him.

"So you cut down the tree?" Cynthia asked while she was discreetly reaching for Gabite's Pokéball.

"Yes I suppose that I should accept responsibility for that one," the purple haired man replied with a malicious smirk on his face, "why don't you come with me and we can make sure you're all right back at HQ." This line shocked both Ash and Cynthia, since they were just told that they were a target for team rocket.

'Where are the other two? He wouldn't have come after us alone, he's not that stupid.' Cynthia thought while trying to figure out how to deal with Beedrill, since he was caught off guard last time by Pikachu's Thunder Wave. Sending a glance over to Ash, she saw Pikachu was already in front of him, ready to attack at a moment's notice. After she was finished analyzing the situation, she tossed out Gabite's Pokéball, releasing the cave Pokémon.

Unknown to her, she had done just what James was counting on, and the trap that was waiting for Gabite was sprung. To Cynthia's shock, she saw a fast moving cloud of spores coming towards Gabite, which she immediately recognized as Stun Spore. In spite of her strength, the cave Pokémon wasn't able to move as the spores immediately took effect on her.

"Damn," Cynthia mumbled as she returned Gabite, 'this is bad, they were expecting Gabite, so they probably have that gloom nearby to provide support,' she thought. She thankfully still had Pokémon other than Gabite to battle, so she replaced Gabite's Pokéball on her belt. After a moment's thought she threw another Pokéball, "Roselia you're up," she yelled as the dual grass/poison type appeared before her.

James had expected the girl to have more Pokémon than that dragon, but he was confident that they could crush them with it out of the way. "Beedrill, use String Shot," he ordered. With that, the battle began in full.

Beedrill fired a stream of silk, similar to Metapod's, but with much more force, towards Pikachu and Roselia. The move missed when the two Pokémon took off in different directions to avoid it, they then started to move in on Beedrill, hoping to surround it.

James, seeing what was going on smirked as he ordered a Twinneedle, which Beedrill instantly complied by jabbing both of its arms to the sides at its opponents.

Seeing that their strategy failed, Pikachu jumped to the side and moved away from Beedrill, while Roselia followed suit while launching a Razor Leaf attack.

Seeing the Razor Leaf coming, James ordered Beedrill to dodge. He wouldn't take any chances after having already been defeated once by them because he underestimated them. Beedrill flew over the leaves and landed in front of his master to await another command.

Over in the trees, Jessie took an opportunity to have Gloom launch another Stun Spore at the two trainers from cover. The weed Pokémon complied and released the thick cloud of spores again, and sent it towards Roselia and Pikachu.

Ash saw the cloud before Cynthia and ordered Pikachu to move away from it after having seen what it did to Gabite, a Pokémon several times the mouse's size. 'That Gloom is hiding in the forest and firing attacks at us, but where is it?' He knew it would be a problem if they didn't take care of it, but for the life of him he couldn't think of any way to get it into the open. He couldn't do anything if he didn't know where it was hiding… "That's it!" he said aloud, drawing Cynthia's attention to him with a look of "what?" on her face. "Pidgeotto knock Gloom into the clearing with Aerial Ace!" he yelled, which brought a shocked look to both of the team rocket trainers faces at the command. They hadn't thought about him having another Pokémon out from the start, and it was made worse because it was a Pidgeotto, a Pokémon known for its keen eyesight.

"Gloom dodge it and get over next to Beedrill," Jessie ordered as she jumped out of the tree she was watching from to stand by James, with the grass type following suit. She saw the bird Pokémon come darting out of the tree line pursuing gloom before it smashed its wings into the weed Pokémon.

Cynthia was focusing on the battle now that she had both of the enemies in her field of vision, making the battle significantly easier now that they weren't being bombarded with sneak attacks. "Roselia, use Energy Ball on Gloom," she commanded, wanting to get rid of the weed Pokémon before it could get off any more spores to disable their Pokémon. The thorn Pokémon charged a leaf green ball in between her bouquet shaped hands, which she fired at Gloom.

Gloom, seeing the attack coming, hopped to the side to avoid it, only to see a Razor Leaf coming at it, which was already too close to dodge. "Gloom, use Acid!" Jessie yelled, snapping the Weed Pokémon into action. It fired a glob of acid from its mouth, which neither Pokémon nor trainer expected to hit, but it managed to graze Roselia, drawing a wince of pain from the thorn Pokémon.

"Pidgeotto use Gust!" Ash called. The bird flapped her wings, which whipped up a small tornado that knocked back Beedrill and Gloom, not doing much damage, but getting them some room to work with. "Pikachu use Thunder Wave!" he commanded the mouse this time. Pikachu began to charge the energy for the move.

"Not this time kid!" came a voice from the side as Meowth dashed past, smashing into Pikachu with a dark aura shrouding him. An attack that Cynthia mentioned was called Pursuit. Pikachu was sent flying backwards as Meowth made his way over towards the edge of the clearing.

'This isn't good,' Cynthia thought as she saw the Scratch Cat Pokémon take his own place on the battlefield. They hadn't fought Meowth before so they didn't know what he could do, add in that he was fighting on his own, and it made him one hell of a wild card. She glanced over and was thankful to see that Pikachu was able to get up; although he was fairly shaky after the hit he took.

Ash, seeing Pikachu's condition, knew that the mouse needed to take some time to recover. "Pikachu come back," he called, much to the mouse's surprise, though the surprise quickly became anger.

"Pika pi pika chu!" he attempted to argue, before being cut off by Ash.

"You're not in any shape to keep going Pikachu now come back." Grudgingly, Pikachu made his way over by his trainer but refused to drop his alert status for anything. "Pidgeotto you're up." The bird nodded and took her place at the head of the group to be ready to fight.

Seeing that they had an opening, Beedrill and Gloom rushed forward, Beedrill with a Twinneedle and Gloom with something like a scratch only stronger. Cynthia rushed to intercept them when Meowth blindsided Roselia with a slash attack. Taking a chance, Ash ordered an Aerial Ace on Beedrill. Pidgeotto disappeared in the telltale Aerial Ace, reappearing to the right of Beedrill. James commanded Beedrill to dodge, but forgot about Gloom being right behind Beedrill, so the flying type move, while missing Beedrill, smashed dead on into Gloom. Unfortunately for the Weed Pokémon, Pidgeotto decided to take the initiative and flew over the Weed Pokémon and rushed towards it with a Quick Attack, sending the Weed Pokémon smashing into the ground. The impact finished off Gloom, leaving the battle with only Beedrill and Meowth to contend with.

Speaking of Meowth, the cat was currently charging what looked like an electric attack, but much stronger than any of Pikachu's. Finally taking notice of the danger the cat presented, Ash tried to tell Pidgeotto to dodge, but was too late as a massive shockwave was launched towards the bird, striking dead on. Pidgeotto was out cold before she could even make a sound to indicate her pain. Ash was now more worried than ever as he returned his fallen Pokémon. Meowth was smirking from where he stood on the edge of the clearing, "That all you got?" he taunted as he watched Ash glare at him. Clearly the Scratch Cat Pokémon wasn't to be taken lightly, Ash sighed as he only had Pikachu and Metapod left, with Pikachu being injured from Meowth's first strike.

Making up his mind, Ash tossed Metapod's Pokéball, "Metapod let's go!" With a flash of light the cocoon Pokémon appeared. In spite of his maturity, James couldn't help laughing at what he saw as a completely stupid move, Meowth being noticeably silent while keeping an eye on Ash. 'He doesn't seem like the stupid type, why would he send out a Pokémon that can't move?' Meowth thought as he tried to understand the strategy the kid was working on.

"Metapod use String Shot!" Ash called, silently praying he could get this to work. Metapod fired a stream of silk that hit Beedrill head on before he started to pull himself towards the poison type. Misunderstanding the strategy, Beedrill simply sliced the thread off of him before he looked back to see Metapod hurtling towards him, covered in a sheen that indicated the use of harden. The last thought before impact being 'OH SHIT!', he was promptly sent flying into a tree, completely out cold and unable to fight.

Meowth cursed under his breath, "Looks like it's down to me again," he mumbled in irritation at his two human partners, "I told them they need backup or more Pokémon than just the one." Not taking any chances, Meowth charged towards Metapod, with his right hand raised while it was coated in a sickly looking purple fog, 'Shadow Claw,' he thought as he slashed across the cocoon Pokémon's face. Once again, the Pokémon was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Ash was at the end of his rope now, he knew that Meowth was strong, but he was constantly being reminded when he saw the cat in action. He was now down to Pikachu, who was still having trouble with steadying himself, let alone battling. He got nervous as the cat turned towards him, before he saw something that made him breathe a sigh of relief.

Meowth, seeing the kid's apparent relief, turned around, and his eyes widened at the sight of a fully mobile and battle ready Gabite glaring at him. 'Shit,' he thought as he saw that Gabite looked fairly pissed for the cheap shot Gloom had hit her with. While Meowth knew he was decently strong, he knew that he couldn't take out Gabite while it was fresh, let alone the other Pokémon the blonde girl had in reserve. Seeing no other choice, Meowth gathered his energy towards the coin on his forehead while thinking of the move that he was using. 'We lost this one, but cowards can fight another day,' he thought as he released the Flash attack that he had been building up. The effect was instantaneous; Ash, Cynthia, Gabite, and Pikachu all had to immediately cover their eyes as the bright light was released. When the light finally toned down enough for them to open their eyes, team rocket was gone.

Cynthia knew the fight was over since she saw Gabite start to relax, she had hoped they could stop them and get them behind bars this time, but unfortunately Meowth seemed to be able to use even Flash. Gabite nudged her trainer as if to say "we'll get them next time" which earned her a gentle pat on the head and a smile from Cynthia. "Ash let's get going, it's almost sun down," she called getting her friends attention.

The two then began the final stretch of their walk towards pewter city, both wanting to just have a normal quiet walk for once after the excitement of their recent run in with team rocket.

**In Team Rockets getaway balloon…**

Meowth had just finished scolding (and scratching) Jessie and James for the failure of their mission.

"We aren't the only ones to blame!" Jessie started to snap at Meowth, but was silenced when said cat smacked her with his tail.

"If it weren't for me we would be sitting behind bars you idiots," Meowth yelled, while silently thankful for James being as humble as he usually is when he makes a mistake. It was usually Jessie that was a problem to deal with, since she had always been a very angry and often arrogant person.

James interrupted before a fight broke out between his two partners (again), "What are we going to do regarding the mission? We have to bring those two in to the boss," he said while he was trying to think of how to approach the situation.

"Like I told you two, you need more than a single Pokémon, especially since they've already beaten them before," Meowth stated, which both trainers grudgingly nodded in agreement to, "And try not to make this one ANOTHER poison type, the team already has way too many of those," Meowth continued, once again getting a nod of agreement. After all, Team Rocket was well known for using a lot of poison type Pokémon, and it wouldn't do to just use the one type against opponents like the two kids had proven to be.

With that the three then began to discuss what they would look for to get an edge over their targets as they continued through the air in the balloon.

**With Ash, Pikachu, and Cynthia…**

The small group had finally arrived at the Pokémon center in Pewter City, after they had run into a man named Flint who had been selling… rocks, on the outskirts of town. The man had been willing to show them the way to the Pokémon center, which they were now standing in while they thanked Flint for his help.

"Don't mention it," Flint said, waving off the thanks while he started his way back to wherever he was staying.

After making the reservations for a room and dropping their Pokémon off to be treated for their injuries, Ash and Cynthia made their way over to the cafeteria to get some dinner. Before long, they were called up to the desk and Ash retrieved Metapod, Pidgeotto, and Pikachu from the nurse, with Pikachu hopping off the tray holding the Pokéballs onto Ash's shoulder again. With that, both trainers decided to head up to their room to turn in for the night, finally bringing an end to the crazy day they just had.

**That's all for chapter 6,**

**thanks to everybody who's been voting on the poll.**

**if anybody has any questions, just review or pm me and i'll try and answer them either via pm or in the following chapter.**

**if you have any suggestions on pokemon team rocket should catch, let me know.**

**as always, feel free to post any constructive criticism that you might have.**

**thanks for reading,**

**Akkeiton**


	7. finally out of the forest

**A/N Thanks to everyone who reviewed and voted in the poll, this is the last chapter to vote for this one. After this I'll be putting up the second part of it.**

**(Notice) (not sure what i'm supposed to put to let people know this is important) the rate I update this at will be fairly random for a while, since I just moved and right now my computer is in storage. not sure if this means much to that many people, but I thought you should know.**

**Thanks to uranium235 for beta reading this as always.**

**Reviews**

**Kitsune of dark fire - personally I didn't really think about it at the time and had to reread it to see, but now that I think about it, the unavoidable moves seem to be extremely unrealistic, even in pokemon logic. For example, aerial ace has the user diving then appearing right in front of the opponent, but gloom was in the middle of the woods, surrounded by trees and bushes, so that would definitely have some kind of effect on aerial ace's accuracy. Thank you for pointing the slip up out to me though. **

Disclaimer – is there really a need to do this every time I make a chapter? I clearly don't own pokemon L

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

**"Insert words here" machine voice**

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

Ch 7 finally out of the forest

* * *

After waking up and going through their morning routine to prepare for the day, Ash, Cynthia and Pikachu were sitting in the cafeteria finishing their respective breakfast. **(A/N from now on I'm just going to leave it as is so I don't keep having to put in these author's notes, so unless otherwise, just imagine what you please for their meals)**

After they finished their food, the three began to head out for the Pewter City Gym when Ash remembered that Cynthia told him he needed to register for the league first. He made his way over to the main desk, where Nurse Joy stood at attention to help any trainers that might need assistance.

Nurse Joy looked at the two trainers as they approached her, "Good morning, how may I help you?" she asked while smiling kindly. Ash returned the smile, shocking the nurse when he didn't comment on meeting her in Viridian City like just about every new trainer did when they came through. Ash had already been given a short warning about the bizarre situation with the Joy family and the Jenny family.

"Good morning, I was hoping you might be able to register me to compete in the Pokémon league," Ash asked. 'I really hope I'm not too late,' he thought, since he knew he was behind schedule for most rookie trainers.

"You're cutting it close, but yes I can register you, today is the last day that registrations are being accepted for the league this year," Nurse Joy said as she was typing something into the computer. After a couple of minutes of typing, she looked up from the computer, "I'll need your Pokédex for a moment to register you please," Ash handed over his Pokédex, which the nurse took, opened it, and proceeded to hook it up to the computer. After another minute, she disconnected the Pokémon scanner and handed it back to Ash.

"Thank you" Ash said before he started to head back out of the common Center with Cynthia.

As they walked out Cynthia couldn't help but sweat drop at the scene that had just unfolded, 'They didn't even acknowledge that I was there,' she thought somewhat depressed as she followed Ash as he headed towards his destination, which was the Pewter Gym.

"CLOSED?!" Ash yelled, startling Cynthia from her thoughts, and almost making Pikachu fall off his shoulder in surprise. Sure enough there was a sign that said closed on the door to the large building that had seemingly appeared in front of her. Looking at the sign, she read more after the closed part, 'For cleaning, will reopen at noon,' again Cynthia had to sweat drop while she thought to herself, 'It's an arena where Pokémon will hurl boulders and fireballs at each other, what's the point of cleaning it?'

While Cynthia was questioning the intelligence of the Gym staff's actions, Ash finished reading the rest of the sign once he had finally calmed down (AKA been Thundershocked by Pikachu) "Well now what do we do until noon?" he said out loud.

Seeing that Ash had no plans, Cynthia's eyes lit up with a fairly large amount of excitement before she spoke up, "Well, we could go take a look at the museum at the north end of town," she said hopefully. Cynthia had always been fond of history and archeology on account of growing up with her grandmother, who was a widely respected researcher. Her grandmother had told her about the museum in Pewter City, and how she had enjoyed every second of her tour, something that Cynthia herself was determined to experience.

Ash, seeing the enthusiasm that his friend had towards the museum, smiled as he replied to her suggestion, "Well, that sounds like it could be fun, let's go!" he said before he suddenly found himself being dragged by the blonde girl to what he guessed was the museum. Thinking to himself as he heard Pikachu yelling in shock and fear, 'I hope she won't be like this every time we find a museum.'

* * *

**10 minutes of dragging later…**

Ash was relieved when Cynthia finally stopped long enough for him to stand up, before he looked up to see where she had decided to stop. He was fairly impressed with the building in front of him. The building seemed to have a look that was similar to a mansion, while having a few characteristics of a warehouse, with an archway leading to the doors. Taking a look at Cynthia, Ash noticed something, "…Are you crying?" he asked, though mentally he was saying something different entirely, 'Note to self: never make any mention of history or anything else that can be related to a museum.' He, honestly, was a little freaked out by her actions since mentioning the museum.

Snapping out of her museum induced trance, Cynthia shook her head for a moment before replying. "n-no," she stuttered with her face red in embarrassment.

"Right…" Ash replied, clearly not believing her but not pressing the issue any further as he turned towards the doors of the museum, which had many people walking in and out, "Well, we should head in now right?" he asked, causing the blonde trainer to perk up and nod her head in agreement.

Making their way to the doors, Ash and Cynthia took a look around the interior of the museum and both were impressed by the sheer size of the building. Seeing a desk with two women standing behind it with people walking over, both walked over to it realizing that this was where they would pay admission.

When they arrived the woman on the right smiled at them, "Hello, and welcome to the Pewter City history and archeology museum, would you like to buy a ticket? It is $50, though it only lasts until you leave," she asked both of the trainers.

Cynthia spoke up before Ash could accept, "We'll take two tickets please!" she then blushed when she saw several people look at her, many smirking in amusement.

The woman giggled before she started to ring up the total of the two tickets she soon paused as she looked back to the two trainers, "Will you be paying for these separately or will one of you be paying for both?" At this, the two trainers looked at each other for a moment.

Cynthia was about to speak up, but she was beaten to the punch when Ash spoke up first, "I'll pay for them both," he said as he handed his Pokédex to the woman for her to make the transaction. Cynthia was slightly embarrassed since she was going to pay for herself, since she thought that Ash had the same idea.

After receiving their tickets, the two made their way into the museum, but stopped when Cynthia looked at Ash with a slightly irritated look, "Ash, I could have paid for myself," she said. She felt bad that he had used more of what little money he had on her.

"Don't worry about it. I just thought it would be faster than waiting for the two transactions. Plus I wanted to say thanks for all the help you've given me over the past few days." Ash's response surprised her, since she hadn't felt that there was much need for thanks. 'All the same, I'll enjoy the museum,' she thought with a smile.

For the next hour, the two trainers were looking at the different exhibits that were scattered around the museum. Cynthia took a fairly great interest in a few old tablets that depicted scenes from a few old civilizations. Ash hadn't really been interested in that many of the exhibits, until he saw a sign that mentioned fossils of ancient Pokémon that were on display. As a Pokémon trainer, Ash instantly took interest in the Pokémon that had been around long ago, though this was more along the lines of "what would it be like to battle that Pokémon" than anything else.

As the two trainers began making their way to the fossil exhibit to finish up their tour, they both noticed that two people were standing beside the fossils, seemingly arguing. As they got closer they began to hear more of the conversation.

"…And I'm telling you the answer is no," the man on the left side said, who was wearing what looked like a scientist's lab coat, 'Probably one of the researcher's that works here,' Cynthia thought.

The person on the left, now looking to be a kid barely older than Cynthia herself, spoke up, "I've already told you I'm willing to pay for them." As he said this Cynthia began to feel a fair bit of dislike towards the boy. As the boy was refused once again, what he said next made her very angry, "These things are just collecting dust like the rest of this useless crap, I don't see any point in wasting these fossils when they could be made to be a powerful Pokémon for any trainer to use in the league."

Cynthia immediately knew why she didn't like the boy now; he was someone who felt that everything should be used for gaining more power for oneself, otherwise it was useless. She hated people like that, because she had been that selfish not so long ago. Walking up to the arguing pair, Cynthia spoke up, cutting off the scientist who was about to make his own response, "How dare you insult the history stored here! Those fossils are an important part of history, not some tool to be used for you to satisfy your own bloated ego in battle."

The boy grew an arrogant sneer on his face before he responded to her rant, "All they do is just sit there. If you ask me they should be put to actual use instead of being wasted for the 'precious history' that these scientists are so concerned with."

At his statement Ash also was getting angry at the boy's attitude, since it reminded him far too much of his former friend Gary, who felt that whatever he knew was best and that he was right no matter what. "And what makes you think that you know any better about how to use them?" Ash spoke up, drawing the boy's attention to him.

Seeing that he was being cornered, the boy started to get an angry look on his face, "If you think you're so great why don't you prove it instead of talking all big?" the boy said, as if starting a fight would make him right.

Normally, Ash would have accepted the challenge regardless of the consequences, but he really didn't want to be around the kid since he was starting to bring out some memories of being humiliated growing up by Gary, 'It's bad enough I have to deal with Gary all the time, but this guy is worse.'

Seeing that Ash was moments away from getting into a fight with the boy that was insulting his profession, the scientist intervened, "I'm afraid that battles aren't allowed in the museum, and I'll have to ask you to leave since you are disrupting the other visitors," he said as he sent a look at the gathering crowd that was looking on at the scene.

Not to be deterred, the boy spoke up again, "Well then I guess we'll take this outside," he said as if Ash had already accepted his challenge.

Cynthia again spoke up, seeing a chance to close the conversation, "Well, I'm afraid that we would then have to pay for another pair of tickets, and I don't really think that you would be worth it, no offense," she finished with clearly false politeness.

Angry about being spoken too in such a way, the boy started to reach for a Pokéball, when he was grabbed by the shoulder. Looking up he noticed that someone had sent for a security guard to deal with the troublemaker, "I believe you were asked to leave, out of courtesy I'll ask you once more, please leave the building," the guard stated with very little emotion.

Knowing that he lost the argument, the boy huffed and walked away, causing the crowd to start dispersing seeing the incident was over.

The scientist turned back to look at Ash and Cynthia, and sighed in relief, "Thank you for helping me deal with that situation, I'm sure he would have gotten out of hand a lot faster if it was just me talking to him," the man said gratefully.

"It's no problem, I can't stand people who have no respect for the history held in places like this," Cynthia said with a smile.

"Yeah, that guy reminded me of someone I don't like anyway, always thinking that he is right about everything," Ash started with a normal tone of voice that descended into an angry mumble by the end of his sentence.

"Well I really do need to thank you though, it gets tiresome dealing with people that want to try to purchase our exhibits, almost always wanting the Pokémon fossils," the man said with a tired sigh as he thought of all the incidents that he had dealt with in the last week alone.

Ash was then reminded about something that the boy had mentioned, "Um… excuse me sir," he spoke up.

The scientist interrupted him though, "Please, call me Chris, it always makes it easier if you know someone's name when you're talking, you know."

"All right, Chris, what was that boy talking about when he said that the fossils could be made into a powerful Pokémon for the league?" Ash asked curiously.

"Well, it was recently discovered that the fossils of Pokémon that have been extinct for years…" at this he noticed the look on Ash's face at the word extinct, "It means they were wiped out a long time ago." Getting a nod of understanding Chris continued, "it was discovered that with the right equipment and a scientist that has the right know-how can bring a fossil back to life as a genuine Pokémon." At this both Ash and Cynthia's eyes widened at just what could be done with this knowledge.

"Well anyway, I was planning to give you this as thanks for helping me with that annoying brat." At this, both Ash and Cynthia laughed with Chris. After the three were done laughing, Chris pulled a rock from his pocket that had what looked like a small bug frozen inside, which he then handed to Ash. Seeing Ash's confused look, he explained, "It's called amber. See the bug there, it's what's called a mosquito, a bug that would suck blood out of humans and Pokémon to feed itself." At this both Ash and Cynthia shuddered at something feeding on their blood. "This amber is extremely old, it used to be tree sap believe it or not, but after the bug got stuck in it, the sap hardened, turning it into a makeshift fossil."

Realizing that the stone he was holding was more valuable than it first seemed, Ash made sure to keep a firm grip on it, causing Chris to laugh at his care, "Well it's nice to see that you can appreciate the history behind it." Ash smiled good naturedly in response.

Cynthia spoke up at this point, "Are you sure you can just give something away like that? Isn't it important?" At this Chris waved her off as if to say not to worry.

"It's not really museum property, it's something I found a while back while I was going through a shop to kill some time. Though I gave it to you for another reason." At this he got curious looks from both Ash and Cynthia, upon which he continued what he was saying, "There have been a few rumors going around that amber like this can be used in the same way a fossil can, but none of them have been confirmed. I figure that maybe at some point you might run across someone who can restore that for you." As he finished both Ash and Cynthia had wide eyes at just what that meant.

One of the few facts that were well known about ancient Pokémon was that even when they were young they showed insane potential for becoming extraordinarily powerful if trained correctly. Ash then thanked Chris for such a generous gift, which he wave off once again. "Don't mention it, I just want to know whether those rumors are true or not, it would mean a lot for the scientific community, though I don't know why nobody else has looked into it yet," Chris said offhandedly as he bid the two trainers farewell and walked off.

Looking at one another, Ash nodded to Cynthia before he placed the amber carefully into his backpack, making sure it would be kept safe from harm. After re-securing his backpack, Ash looked at the clock in front of the entrance to the museum and saw that it was almost noon. "Hey Cynthia, I think we should start heading to the Gym now," he said.

Cynthia gained a disappointed look on her face for a moment before looking at the clock and realized that they should get going. Reluctantly, she nodded in agreement, "Let's get going then," she said.

The two then made their way back to the entrance, and proceeded out the doors with the women at the counter wishing them a good day. Once outside, both trainers made their way to the Pewter City Gym, for what would be Ash's greatest challenge so far.

* * *

**10 minutes later (outside the Pewter City Gym)…**

By the time that Ash, Cynthia, and Pikachu arrived at the Gym they realized that they still had a couple minutes to wait. During this time, Ash took in the design of the building and realized that he had no real idea how to deal with a rock type Pokémon since he had no type advantage. 'This might end badly,' Ash thought to himself as he began to think on what he could do to beat the Gym leader. He was startled from his thoughts when Cynthia tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Ash, the Gym is open, aren't you gonna go in?" she asked, though she was simultaneously thinking, 'He must be nervous, and he doesn't have a type advantage against rock types either.' She knew that he would have a hard time, but she hoped he would remember the first thing she taught him regarding Pokémon, typing was an advantage, but it wasn't everything.

Taking a deep breath, Ash pushed open the doors of the Gym and stepped inside, only to be greeted by darkness. "Hello? Is anyone there?" he said loudly, hoping to get an answer from someone in the place.

His prayer was answered when a voice shouted out in response, "Who goes there!?" The suddenness of the voice startled both Ash and Cynthia as they couldn't see anything.

Ash calmed himself enough to reply, "I'm Ash Ketchum from pallet town, I've come to challenge the Gym leader to a battle." In response to his statement, the lights suddenly flicked on, causing both Ash and Cynthia to grab their faces to help their eyes adjust to the insane change in brightness.

Across from them, the Gym leader sweat dropped when he saw the two trainers reactions to the light switching on, 'Maybe turning on all the lights at once was a bad idea,' he thought to himself.

After a few minutes, Ash and Cynthia finally were able to see clearly and looked to see the Gym leader sitting across the Gym from them. He was a young man that looked about 15 with dark skin, he was wearing an orange t-shirt that was covered by a green vest. He was wearing a pair of dark orange pants that had a small pouch on the right side. The thing that caught their attention most was his face, he had short slightly messy, spiked brown hair, his eyes were seemingly closed but if one were to look closely than they would see that he had extremely squinted eyes.

After taking a moment to take in the Gym leader's appearance, both Ash and Cynthia felt they had to ask a question that was fairly relevant at the moment.

"What was the point of turning off all the lights like that?!" the two trainers shouted, causing the Gym leader to scratch the back of his head and laugh sheepishly.

"Well, you see, I didn't get the chance to turn them on before you walked in," he said, making Ash, Cynthia, and Pikachu all sweat drop, "Anyway, my name is Brock Harrison, I believe you were looking to challenge me, Ash was it?" the now named man asked as he started to stand up.

"Uh, yes sir, I was hoping to battle you for the league Badge so I can compete in the Pokémon league," Ash said somewhat timidly since he had no idea how to approach the situation at hand.

Brock, seeing the unease in the younger trainer gave a good natured laugh and put a hand on Ash's shoulder, "No need to be so nervous, I'd be glad to accept your challenge, but please, just call me Brock," he said, causing Ash to calm down quickly. "Now Ash, the rules for a Gym battle are slightly different from normal battles. In this case, it will be a 2 on 2 battle with me being unable to switch Pokémon until they are defeated, but you have the right to switch at will." Ash nodded to signal his understanding.

Both trainers took their places at the opposite sides of the Gym's battlefield, which Cynthia was looking over from her position on the observation deck above the field. The field itself looked somewhat like the terrain of a mountain, with multiple rocks scattered here and there with a rocky floor. She looked to her right when she saw movement and took notice that there were several young children huddled around the railing, she immediately noticed that they all in some way had a resemblance to Brock, leading her to the conclusion that they must be family.

Down in the Gym the two trainers stood across from each other as the referee began to state the rules and conditions of the match, which both understood clearly.

"I'll be starting this off then," Brock said as he threw a Pokéball into the air, "Geodude, go!" he shouted as the ball released the Pokémon in the expected flash of light.

The light began to take shape, and when it was finished the Pokémon stood before Ash. It was clearly a rock type, on account of the Pokémon simply being a rock with two arms and a face. Removing Dexter from his jacket, Ash scanned Geodude and was given the familiar mechanical lecture on the Pokémon:

"**Geodude, the rock Pokémon. Geodude uses its sturdy arms to steadily climb mountain paths. Geodude are known to bash against each other in a contest to prove whose body is harder. This Pokémon has incredibly high defensive power, making it virtually resistant to any physical attack,"** the Pokédex recited, causing Ash to feel nervous since he didn't really have anything that wasn't physical.

Ash knew he had to send out a Pokémon and made his choice, "Pikachu, you're up." The mouse jumped off his shoulder with a small cry and took his place across from Geodude.

"The match between Pikachu and Geodude will now begin," the referee stated, and Brock snapped into action.

"Geodude use Tackle!" The rock Pokémon complied and sent itself hurtling towards Pikachu with its powerful arms.

"Pikachu, dodge it and use quick attack!" Pikachu hopped to the side letting Geodude soar past him before he rushed at the rock Pokémon. The attack connected and for a moment nothing happened until Pikachu moaned in pain. Geodude smirked at the attempted counterattack.

"Geodude, grab Pikachu and throw it." Pikachu was unable to react as the rock type's arm shot out at surprising speed and seized him. On reflex he let out an electric charge that he knew from the look on Geodude's face, as well as his rational thinking, had no effect whatsoever. The mouse then found himself flying through the air on a collision course with a rock on the field.

Ash was at a loss as he saw that Pikachu's only non-electric attack had no effect on Geodude due to its insane defense power. As Pikachu was flying through the air, he made a desperate call, "Tuck in and try to minimize the damage." He hoped it would work, which thankfully it somewhat did. Pikachu was clearly still hurt, but he could still fight.

Brock was watching the fight, which he knew would most likely end in his victory. He knew that Ash wouldn't have any possible advantage since he had met three trainers with the starters that professor oak was offering for this year. He was standing by for the moment to see how the trainer would cope rather than pressing the advantage, since he knew his role was to test trainers and see how they would react to situations, not outright crush them and end any hopes they might have.

Ash was taking the time that he knew Brock was giving him to think of how to deal with Geodude, 'Quick Attack had no effect, and from the looks of things Thundershock and Thunder Wave wouldn't work either,' Ash thought. He made a mental list of the attacks that Pikachu could use when he suddenly remembered one of the moves that had completely been forgotten, "Pikachu use Tail Whip!" he called out hoping the move would help.

Tail Whip was a deceptive move, since it had only recently been figured out how hitting something with ones tail would make them more vulnerable to subsequent attacks. The Pokémon gathered up a bit of energy at their tail that was released at the point of impact, causing it to become more sensitive due to the point seeming to relax itself involuntarily and becoming incapable of tensing in response to an attack. The researchers were still trying to figure out what the energy was, but it seemed it was a fairly universal kind that almost all Pokémon possessed.

Pikachu managed to cross the gap between him and Geodude, and smacked the rock Pokémon in the face with his tail, causing the rock type to sputter for a moment due to the surprise of the attack.

Brock, from his position, knew that Ash had discovered a way around the high defense of rock types, so he decided to step up his game a bit, "Geodude, use Rock Throw!" he commanded.

The rock Pokémon complied by ripping small but still dangerous chunks of earth from the ground, which he then tossed at Pikachu, which the mouse narrowly avoided due to the obvious danger of the attack. But was surprised after the attack ended to see Geodude hurtling towards him in another vicious Tackle.

"Pikachu use Quick Attack into another Tail Whip!" Ash said, since he knew that outright dodging the attack was impossible at this point. Pikachu shot forward at the highest speed he could with so little time and swung his tail at Geodude's face again. As the attack made contact Geodude flinched, but kept going and hit Pikachu again, sending the mouse flying before he collided with the Gym floor. Ash was nervous when this happened but breathed a sigh of relief when Pikachu staggered to his feet.

Over with Geodude, the rock type was clearly disoriented, which surprised Brock, 'I guess the Quick Attack must've made the effect of Tail Whip that much stronger, and it hit the same spot again. We have to avoid getting hit there again,' he thought while he waited for Geodude to be a bit more coherent to issue another order, "Geodude, use Tackle with Defense Curl!" he ordered as Geodude again launched himself at Pikachu, only this time he tucked his arms around his face, causing him to start picking up speed faster than before.

"Pikachu get out of the way!" Ash yelled in panic, seeing how Tackle alone almost knocked Pikachu out, but this one was even stronger than the first two. Pikachu shakily dodged to the right as the rock Pokémon shot past him, only to smash into a rock on the field face first, shattering it but surprisingly making him cry out in pain when his face hit the rock. Ash was then reminded of the two Tail Whips that hit the rock type in the same spot, and grinned when he realized he was just given something to work with. "Pikachu use Quick Attack and Tail Whip again!" he yelled as the tired electric type began to move towards Geodude, steadily picking up speed as he approached the stunned rock type.

"Geodude, use defense curl!" Brock yelled urgently to try and save his Pokémon, though it failed as Pikachu smashed head on into Geodude, sending him crashing into the floor and knocking him out.

"Geodude is unable to battle, Pikachu wins!" the referee called as up in the observation deck, all of the children groaned in disappointment at their big brothers Pokémon being beaten.

"Geodude return," Brock said as he recalled the unconscious rock type to its Pokéball, "Well done Geodude," he complimented as he put the Pokéball back on his belt and grabbed a different one, "Ash, that was a great battle on your part, but I doubt Pikachu will be able to stand against this next Pokémon. Go Onix!" he finished with a shout as he tossed the Pokéball into the air, which made Ash go pale as he saw the Pokémon inside take shape.

Onix was a giant snake made of boulders with a large stone horn on top of its head. Onix stood itself up to its impressive height and released a massive roar that unnerved Ash even more than his size already did.

Ash took his Pokédex out with a slightly shaking hand and pointed it at Onix, and waited for the box to scan the rock-type.

"**Onix, the rock snake Pokémon. Onix rapidly burrows through the ground at up to 50 mph by twisting its massive body. As it grows the stone portions of its body harden to become similar to black diamonds,"** the Pokédex finished.

"The battle between Pikachu and Onix will now begin," the referee stated as he noticed Ash was done with scanning Onix.

"Onix use Dig," Brock stated in a calm voice, which was followed by the massive rock type diving head first into the ground and kicking up a lot of dust and dirt as the rock snake quickly vanished under the arena.

Seeing their opponents' strategy made both Ash and Pikachu pale severely since both knew that they already had little chance to win this fight with the shape Pikachu was in.

After looking around nervously for a few moments trying to find Onix, the task was done for them when Brock called out, "Onix use bind," The command was followed with the giant Pokémon bursting from the ground inches away from Pikachu, who was promptly grabbed and squeezed by the rock snake.

Pikachu cried out in pain and tried to release an instinctive electric charge that wildly shot around the Gym, unknowingly hitting the sprinkler system above the arena, which, if one were looking, would have seen it loosen slightly and begin to leak a bit. Down below Pikachu was again squeezed by Onix, causing him to cry out in pain that was starting to make his vision go blurry.

Ash, upon seeing his friends obvious pain was about to forfeit, when Pikachu stopped him with a loud cry of anger before he forced his eyes open to meet Ash's gaze, as if to say 'we can still win.' Ash was then reminded that he still had one more Pokémon to choose for battling against Onix after Pikachu was defeated. Ash reluctantly nodded to Pikachu as the mouse finally gave up the fight and lost consciousness.

Seeing the mouse faint, Brock called for Pikachu to be released, which Onix did, making sure to gently place the tiny Pokémon on the ground, allowing Ash to step out onto the field and pick up his friend. As he walked back to his side of the battlefield, Cynthia walked over and took Pikachu from Ash.

"Don't worry Ash, Pikachu will be fine. Besides, you did great out there," Cynthia said as she saw the sad look on her friend's face.

Ash looked up and smiled gratefully for the encouragement that the blonde girl gave him and nodded before walking back to his place on the field.

"Will the challenger please send out his last Pokémon," the referee said as Ash returned to the field.

Ash was thinking about his only remaining Pokémon and how he could take on Onix with either one, 'Pidgeotto isn't exactly much of a choice since her typing and the fact she's a bird won't help much against something like Onix, not that Metapod is much better for this,' he thought as he then made his choice with a sigh. Taking a Pokéball he called out "Metapod, I choose you!"

Brock was surprised at the young trainer's choice since Metapod were known to be nearly immobile, making them easy targets for Pokémon like Onix. Up above, Brock's siblings were all chuckling at the challenger's choice of Pokémon while Cynthia was just watching, since she knew that Ash and Metapod had surprised her several times already.

"The battle between Onix and Metapod will now begin," the referee declared finally starting the match that would decide the victor.

"Onix use bind," Brock called out since he knew Metapod would be easy to capture, though he was surprised by Ash's next move.

"Metapod dodge it!" he shouted, which surprisingly prompted a string shot from the cocoon Pokémon's mouth and connected with the ceiling to drag him out of harm's way as Onix crashed to the ground where Metapod had been standing. The building shook with the force of the rock snake's collision with the Gym floor, rattling the already damaged sprinklers, which still had gone unnoticed by everyone.

Seeing his opportunity, Ash called out another order, "Metapod, swing into a Tackle and use Harden!" His shout brought a shocked look to the Pewter Gym leaders face.

"Onix counter with Tackle!" Brock shouted urgently, since Metapod and Kakuna were known to be among the most sturdy users of Harden, which made them rival rock types and their impressive defenses.

The rock snake rushed towards the cocoon Pokémon that was swinging towards it, coated in a light sheen that accompanied the use of Harden. The two Pokémon collided head on and the impact caused Onix to visibly wince in pain, but eventually, it managed to send Metapod flying through the air to crash into the floor and slide away.

Ash looked at his injured Pokémon and then was horrified when he saw a faint crack in Metapod's skin, which worried him as Metapod was a cocoon so he didn't know what would happen if he was broken open. All action in the Gym halted at the sight of the crack starting to spread and a faint glow that shined through.

Onix stood by as he understood what was happening and waited as it was considered dishonorable to attack a Pokémon during evolution, due to the fact that they were unable to move, and any injury could become permanent if inflicted during the process. This was something that no trainer had ever been able to convince a Pokémon to do, since all attempts were met violently at best.

The entire Gym watched as the cocoon that was Metapod slowly broke open and a white form began to make its way out of the now hatching cocoon. At this point Ash's fear had left and was replaced with excitement and joy as he finally realized that the Caterpie he had caught two days ago had achieved his dream. Caterpie had finally become a Butterfree.

Brock was amazed at the fact that the Metapod had evolved, but then shook it off as he realized that he still had to finish the match. "Onix use Tackle on Butterfree," he ordered, which the rock snake complied with, now that the evolution had finished.

Remembering that evolution could give new moves to a Pokémon, Ash quickly grabbed his Pokédex while he made sure to have Butterfree dodge the attacks that Onix was launching at the butterfly. When he first scanned Butterfree, the Pokédex entry came up, which the box started to recite, before Ash pressed a button that skipped the entry and brought up a notice:

**Pokémon: Butterfree**

**New moves learned:**

**Confusion**

**Sleep Powder**

The sight of the newly learned attacks left Ash overjoyed, he finally had an effective weapon against Onix. "Butterfree use Sleep Powder!" he shouted hoping to end the match quickly, which Butterfree complied by flapping his wings, and flying past Onix several times, scattering several spores over the giant Pokémon.

Before Brock's eyes, his Pokémon slowly fell asleep as his orders to use Dig to escape fell on deaf ears as Onix fell to the ground. Brock tried repeatedly to call Onix to wake up, but each attempt was futile, and the referee decided to call the match.

"Onix is unable to…" the referee started to say before one of the sprinklers that was directly above Onix was set off from the built up pressure, and finally a jet of water fell onto the sleeping rock snake, washing away any lingering spores while shocking the rock type awake with a shout of discomfort bordering on pain.

Brock saw that he was still in the match and gave Onix another order, "Onix use Rock Throw!" The snake responded by smashing his tail into the ground at an angle to send rocks flying towards Butterfree.

"Butterfree dodge it!" Ash yelled urgently as he saw the stones flying towards Butterfree. The butterfly Pokémon flew out of the way, but now Ash was concerned since he really didn't know what to do about Onix if sleep powder wouldn't work. He had Confusion, but he knew that Onix was too heavy for Butterfree to pick up. The answer came to him when he noticed Onix wince slightly like Geodude had after being hit with Tail Whip, it was then he noticed that Onix was still soaked which was probably the reason.

"Onix use Bind!" Brock shouted, hoping to end the match, though he had personally felt that Ash deserved the Badge for his efforts so far. The rock snake shot towards Butterfree in attempt to grab the butterfly Pokémon, though both trainer and Pokémon were shocked when Onix was blindsided by a rock that smashed into the side of Onix's head, making him cry out in pain due to the sensitivity of his body right now.

* * *

**Moments earlier…**

Ash saw Onix moving in on Butterfree and knew that if it got a hold of Butterfree, the match would be over. Deciding that he might as well take a chance, he gave an order and prayed it would work, "Butterfree use Confusion on the rocks!" Ash said pointing at the stones left over from Geodude's rock throw, which lit up in a faint blue in response.

He watched with his breath held as the rock soared through the air and connected with Onix's head, and was rewarded with the intended reaction as Onix toppled over with a cry of pain.

* * *

**Currently…**

Ash looked as Onix started to get up, though it was looking somewhat worse for wear after taking a hit to its already sensitive head. "Butterfree use Confusion again!" The butterfly Pokémon picked up another rock with its telekinetic powers and sent it flying at the rock snake which barely dodged it by moving to the side.

Brock was amazed at the idea that Ash had come up with. He had never had someone use something like this against him, and already knew in his mind that he was only still in the fight because of a lucky moment with that sprinkler. "Onix use Dig!" The rock snake was about to comply when another rock smacked into his back, courtesy of Butterfree. The hit stunned Onix for a moment before he slowly started to slump over.

On the opposite side of the room, Butterfree looked exhausted, he had already pushed himself with using Confusion as many times as he had, but the size of the rocks he was throwing made it that much more taxing, and it showed as he started to slow down, and he was drifting down towards the floor. Ash noticed this and was worried, since he knew Butterfree was using all his energy to not faint from exhaustion.

Both Pokémon hit the ground at the same time, one from pain, and the other from fatigue, regardless, neither one was getting up anytime soon so the referee made the call.

"Both Pokémon are unable to battle, this match is a draw!" the referee announced shocking everyone.

Both trainers recalled their Pokémon and walked out into the middle of the field. Brock put out a hand in a gesture of good sportsmanship, which Ash took and the two then shook hands. As Ash pulled his hand back, he was surprised that he had a small gray octagon that was also a type of pin. In Ash's hand was an official Pokémon Gym Badge. Ash was shocked by this, "I can't take this!" Ash said in surprise.

Above, Brock's siblings were offended while Cynthia smiled knowingly at what Ash meant.

"And why not?" Brock questioned as Ash tried to return the boulder Badge that he had given to him.

"Well, I didn't win the match," Ash tried to reason, since he felt he didn't earn it unless he beat the Gym leader.

This made Brock openly laugh, though not in a mean spirited way, "Ash, the whole reason for Gyms is for trainers to be tested, it was never about you winning, you just had to prove to me you were ready to move on to the Pokémon league, which I'd say you will be ready for as long as you keep getting stronger," Brock explained as he gently pushed away the hand that held the boulder Badge that Ash had been trying to give to him.

Ash was surprised by the revelation that Brock had given to him that moment, "You were testing me?" he asked as he was still trying to wrap his head around the way the Gym leader worked.

"Yes, otherwise, at least half of the trainers that go through a Gym wouldn't be able to advance due to failing to win," Brock explained as he saw the look of understanding on Ash's face.

"Thank you Brock, it means a lot to me that you think I deserve this," Ash said gratefully as he looked at the Badge in his hand.

"Don't mention it. Like I said, you earned it," Brock said as Ash continued looking down at the Badge in his hand.

"My first step to becoming a Pokémon master," Ash mumbled to himself as he stared at the Boulder Badge for a few moments before he started to laugh in joy for the accomplishment he had just made towards achieving his dream.

Everyone in the Gym couldn't help but smile at the happiness of the ten year old trainer and even Brock's siblings couldn't help feeling happy for the boy who had faced down their big brother.

Cynthia, still holding Pikachu, smiled as she watched Ash down below with a fond smile as she remembered herself in a similar position back when she won her first Gym Badge a couple years ago.

After calming down, Ash bid Brock farewell as he made his way to the door and met Cynthia there, taking Pikachu the two were about to set out when Brock walked up to them.

"Hey Brock, what's up?" Ash asked curious about seeing the Gym leader again so soon.

"Well I still need to take Geodude and Onix to the Pokémon Center to be treated," Brock explained, receiving nods from both of the younger trainers.

"Yeah I need to check Pikachu and Butterfree in too," Ash said as the three trainers then decided to walk to the Pokémon Center together.

Before long the three were sitting in the lobby talking while waiting for Nurse Joy to treat their Pokémon. The kind young woman was apparently a good friend of Brock's, which when asked caused Brock to explain a bit.

"Truthfully, I don't really have much taste for being a Gym leader, but it's been in the family for so long that I can't let it go to someone else, you know?" Brock said somewhat sadly, "Ever since I saw my first Gym battle when my father fought a challenger about 8 years ago, I've wanted to learn how to take care of Pokémon," Brock explained with a fond look on his face.

"Well why isn't your father taking care of the Gym then?" Cynthia questioned at this.

Brock became visibly depressed at this, "Nobody knows, he left on a journey to become a master Pokémon trainer a few years ago and he disappeared, no one's seen him since. My mother left to try to find him not long after he was reported missing." The atmosphere was visibly depressing at this point.

Cynthia picked up where this was going, "So you are staying here to take care of your little brothers and sisters on account of neither of your parents being here." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Yeah, mom sort of fell out of touch after a couple of months of searching. She still calls, but for the most part it's just my siblings and I," Brock said before Nurse Joy brought out the Pokémon and returned them to their respective trainers, with both thanking her before Brock headed out to return home.

Both Ash and Cynthia couldn't help but feel bad for the Pewter City Gym leader, but both couldn't fault him since they would probably do the same in his position. They knew that there was nothing they could do in this situation, though their hearts went out to the young man. Having no further business in Pewter City, both trainers left the Pokémon Center and began to head east towards the exit of the city to continue their travels.

**That's all for chapter 7, I was asked by uranium235 about when Ash would start improving when he finished betaing this chapter, for anybody else wondering that, I honestly am trying to avoid making him go from a complete moron to a tactical genius within a couple of weeks, since stories like that are hard to keep interesting, and I don't really think i'd be able to do that. if you have any other complaints or questions, pm me with them so I can answer them.**

**as always constructive criticism is welcome if you have actual tips, and also, ideas for pokemon to be caught by both Ash, Cynthia and team rocket are welcome.**

**Thanks for reading,**

**Akkeiton**


	8. Mess at Mt Moon

**A/N The first part of the poll is now closed, with the winner being the legendary dogs, thanks to everyone who voted. The second part will be posted after this chapter is uploaded so please vote for the dog you think Ash should capture. (This will obviously be later on in the story).**

**As always, thanks to Uranium235 for beta reading this story (and fixing my screw-ups ^_^")**

**Reviews**:

**Freedom Zero - for Jessie and James I felt that they should have improved as the show progressed since they could have been like another rival instead of "Pikachu, use thunder!" every episode like in the show. As for Meowth, this was something that came to me during typing, but I noticed that Meowth was really overlooked in every battle, usually just helping via some kind of ridiculous machine that gets blown up. I wanted to make Meowth actually be like an intelligent Pokémon, since every other Pokémon that can talk is pretty much a total badass (examples, Mewtwo, Lugia, Entei, Darkrai, Lucario) to me Meowth just felt like wasted potential, so I made him like an actual Pokémon rather than the joke he is in the anime.**

**To people recommending Pokémon - -I will be keeping any and all recommendations in mind while writing this, but if you want a Pokémon from another region, it will most likely not be used until that region so as to avoid the multiple clichés that plague stories like this. Any further suggestions would be appreciated in pm's though so I won't have to hunt them down in the reviews.**

"Insert words here" normal voice

'Insert words here' thinking

**"Insert words here" machine voice **

"_Insert words here" telepathy_

**Disclaimer**: If I put together a payment plan, maybe one day I can own Pokémon, but for now I don't own Pokémon.

Ch. 8 - A Mess at Mt. Moon

* * *

Ash and Cynthia had been walking for roughly half an hour, since they left Brock behind back in Pewter City. Both of the trainers felt bad for the gym leader, but they realized they couldn't really do much to help him out.

Along the path they were taking, there were several trainers that were battling the wild Pokémon along the route, no doubt as training for future challenges. The Pokémon that they had seen hadn't exactly been diverse, but Ash had seen a couple that were somewhat interesting.

He'd seen a trainer battling against the Spearow on the route with a snake-like Pokémon that had been revealed to be called Ekans. Aside from the snake Pokémon, the only other Pokémon that were really of much interest were the Nidoran and Jigglypuff.

Along with seeing the trainers battling, Ash had been challenged by a few of the trainers, though sadly they were bug catchers, so the battles were fairly underwhelming for them.

Both trainers looked up when Pikachu started to call out while pointing at a crowd of people that were gathering around a hiker holding up an oddly shaped rock.

"I found it in a deeper section of Mt. moon on my way here from Cerulean City," the man responded to a question that neither Ash nor Cynthia had heard. Now that they were closer, both trainers recognized the rock, and understood why the crowd had gathered. The man had found a Pokémon fossil on a hike through the mountain.

Deciding to leave before they got too interested, Ash and Cynthia left the crowd behind and continued towards Mt. moon, though Ash noticed a somewhat sad and envious look in his blonde companions' face. "Do you want to look around Mt. moon to see if you can find anything?" Ash asked, bringing his friend out of her thoughts.

"No, it wouldn't really be a good idea," Cynthia said with a slight sigh. Internally, she was having a fairly one-sided battle with herself, between her love of history and her own logical mind, 'It takes months for entire dig teams to find anything when they are looking, we would be there for at least the rest of the month if we're lucky,' she thought, while she gave Ash a grateful smile for the thought.

Seeing that she had made up her mind, Ash nodded and the silence once again resumed as the two trainers continued walking down the road to Mt. Moon.

* * *

**At the Mt. Moon Pokémon center…**

Ash and Cynthia finally arrived at the Pokémon center that was standing just outside the tunnel that leads through Mt. Moon. They both noticed a very small number of people were actually around, both in and around the Pokémon center as they made their way to the counter that Nurse Joy stood at, looking immensely bored.

Seeing the two young trainers approaching, the pink haired young woman perked up and smiled at them. "Welcome to the Mt. Moon Pokémon center, did you need me to treat your Pokémon?" she asked.

Both Ash and Cynthia were somewhat surprised at the apparent one-eighty that her personality had gone through before shaking it off and replying to the question. After roughly half an hour of waiting, the nurse returned with the treated Pokémon.

Ash thanked the nurse as he grabbed his Pokéballs and Pikachu jumped onto his shoulder. After looking around the lobby, Ash was somewhat unnerved by the emptiness of the center so he spoke the question on his mind, "Is it always this empty around here?" he asked, receiving a mild glare from Cynthia for his complete lack of tact.

With a sigh Joy nodded, "Yes it is unfortunately, people just stop in here to have their Pokémon treated then go through the mountain, and even then they usually camp outside even if they don't make it in time. This is probably one of the most boring centers that anyone in my family has been stationed at," she said with another sigh.

Ash felt somewhat bad because they would probably wind up doing the same thing. Thinking back, he was reminded of something, "What about the people that are looking for fossils around here? We just passed a group of them on the way here," he asked curiously.

The nurse shook her head and sighed again at this, "They are spending more time in the cave than the center regardless, not to mention they are more than a little rude," she said.

Ash nodded at this while Cynthia spoke up, "I'm sorry about this but we need to get going if we're going to make it through the mountain today," she said while looking genuinely apologetic to the unappreciated nurse.

Joy waved them off, "It's no problem, and I'm glad that you took the time to have a conversation at least, instead of just leaving after getting your Pokémon back."

Both of the young trainers said their goodbyes as they left the center and made their way to the tunnel that was directly to the side of the Pokémon center. There was a fairly surprising amount of people entering the tunnel, most of which had digging equipment. Putting two and two together Ash and Cynthia came to the same conclusion, the people must have been enticed by the man on the road and his display of the fossil he had found along the way.

Making their way through the small crowd of people, one of the first things that was noticed about the cavern they had entered was that it was surprisingly well lit, for being a cavern in the side of a mountain. There was also an abundance of Pokémon skittering about **(first time I've ever said or written this phrase in my life… feels weird)**, ranging from Geodude and the occasional Paras, to the extremely well known and fairly rare Clefairy. The Pokémon that drew the most attention though was the Pokémon that every trainer in every region of the world dreaded the very name of: Zubat. Thankfully, the flying nuisances were bothering the other people around the cavern and leaving the trio free to continue to make their way through the cave.

After walking past numerous groups of people that had been digging all around the tunnel, Ash, Cynthia and Pikachu reached the ladder that went down to the second level that they apparently had to go through to make it to Cerulean City.

Looking down the ladder, Ash took the opportunity to ask a question that was bugging him since he heard about the tunnel having two floors, "Why did the tunnel get dug with two floors instead of just digging straight through?" He received only a puzzled look from Cynthia at this, who was now wondering the same thing for this and many other caverns that were scattered around the regions.

Shrugging it off, Ash simply began descending the ladder to make his way through the mountain, with Pikachu holding onto his shoulder, and Cynthia following after.

* * *

**Mt. Moon B1F…**

Both of the trainers immediately noticed the sound of digging, which verified that people were digging on this floor of the tunnel as well. There weren't quite as many people, but the tunnel was still extremely packed with very little room for them to make their way to the ladder to the next floor down.

Carefully maneuvering so as to not disturb the people digging, Ash and Cynthia eventually made their way to the ladder, occasionally exchanging a look with the people that they passed.

With a last look around, the two trainers descended into the last floor of the tunnel that would lead them to the exit.

When they got down to the bottom floor of the tunnel, it was immediately noticed that there were no sounds of tools striking stone, indicating that there was no one digging down here.

Thinking for a moment, Cynthia decided to voice her thoughts, "I guess they haven't moved the digging down here yet, since they are still searching the first two floors," she thought aloud.

The floor was eerily silent, not having seen nor heard a sign of anybody around, neither human or Pokémon. Ash and Cynthia would occasionally glance around to hopefully find something, anything, in the lower levels, but would come up fruitless. The silence was beginning to unnerve them as they now wanted to be out of the cave as soon as possible. On Ash's shoulder, Pikachu was starting to develop a very bad feeling that, as time went by, things would only get worse.

Looking on ahead, the trio breathed a collect sigh of relief as the exit started to come into view.

They immediately halted, however, when a fairly large earthquake began to shake the cavern, causing stalactites to start falling from the ceiling! Both trainers rushed to opposite sides of the room to take cover from the rain of stone.

Both of the trainers were shocked when they saw an Onix, a much larger one then Brock's had been, come smashing through one of the walls of the cavern, which was soon followed by a new Pokémon stepping through the newly made hole in the wall.

The Pokémon immediately rushed up and smashed one of its stony clawed fists into the face of the massive Rock Snake, sending it once again flying back through the air into another point of the cavern's wall. The impact of the Onix caused a fresh rain of stone shards to fall from the ceiling.

From her position, Cynthia instantly recognized the Pokémon, which even when premature, was still known to be very powerful.

Ash, however, had no idea what the Pokémon he was looking at was; it simply looked like a boulder with a reptilian head sticking out with four sturdy looking limbs, two three clawed hands and two four clawed feet sticking out of its body. Raising his Pokédex with a shaky hand Ash promptly scanned the Pokémon.

"**Golem; the Megaton Pokémon. Golem is the fully evolved form of Geodude. This Pokémon is rarely found in the wild due to the normal conditions for its evolution being unknown, usually requiring a trade between two trainers to stimulate the process. Golem's boulder-like body is extremely hard, and can easily withstand dynamite blasts without taking damage. Golem sheds its hard skin once a year to grow larger. This Pokémon is capable of blowing itself up, and uses this explosive force to jump from mountain to mountain," **the red box stated.

As Ash was listening to its quick debrief on Golem, Onix had gotten up from where it had landed and released a massive roar. Golem merely looked on at the Rock Snake with disinterest as it simply waited for Onix to attack again.

It wasn't a long wait as Onix rushed forward as quickly as its body would allow it, smashing the rocks that were in its path to little more than pebbles. Golem stared at the oncoming Rock Snake and at the last second, grabbed Onix by the horn like a bull and smashed a glowing fist into the helpless Pokémon's face as it released its grip on the horn. The end result was Onix once again being tossed across the room and this time, meeting the wall on the edge of the cavern.

The impact of the massive rock-type was another stone shower from the weakening cave ceiling. Ash and Cynthia were forced to leave their shelter as the stones slammed onto their previous hiding places.

Golem, in the midst of taunting Onix with a turn of its head, caught sight of the two trainers and decided to see if they could provide a better challenge than the weak Pokémon it had been fighting up to that point.

Cynthia was quick to deduce what the Megaton Pokémon's intentions were as it turned its attention towards them. With little thought needed, she grabbed a Pokéball from her belt and tossed it while Golem looked on in anticipation. In the familiar flash of light that all Pokéballs are known for, Cynthia's Milotic stood on the field awaiting an order against whatever opponent she would have to face.

"Milotic use Water Pulse!" Cynthia ordered, hoping to make the fight end quickly. Milotic raised her tail, which was covered in a deep blue mist with condensation dripping from the ends of it, and swung it across the ground towards Golem.

On the Megaton Pokémon's end, it was shocked when a massive wave of water formed in the wake of the water serpent's tail and rushed to form a defense by smashing a foot down to try and open a crevice for the water to fall through.

Unfortunately for Golem, this tactic was ineffective due to the sheer size and power of the wave, which continued rushing towards it before smashing into the Pokémon. The resulting collision launched Golem across the room where it began to struggle to stand, stubbornly refusing to give up in spite of the insane amount of damage that it had obviously just taken.

Milotic looked on impassively as the Pokémon eventually managed to stand on its feet before her eyes widened as she saw what seemed to be sparks converging towards Golem's mouth, a reaction shared by her trainer.

"Milotic use Ice Beam!" Cynthia called out urgently, desperate to stop the Golem's attack before it was launched. The Tender Pokémon raised her head, where the air suddenly began cooling to freezing levels, forming a sphere that had mist radiating off of it. With a cry, Milotic swung her head down, upon which time the sphere burst and a long thin stream of energy shot towards Golem, whose eyes widened as it fired the prematurely formed hyper beam that had been charging.

Seconds before the Ice Beam hit, Golem's Hyper Beam launched and crashed into the jet of energy, causing steam to begin forming at the point of contact before the orange beam from Golem was smothered by Milotic's attack and Golem was bathed in the energy and the frigid air that it dragged with it.

Ash and Pikachu had been forced to cover their eyes as the beam kicked up massive amounts of dust and dirt from the general direction that Milotic's Ice beam had gone. When the dust had finally settled, both Ash and Pikachu looked at where Golem was standing and were shocked and a little disturbed by the sight that greeted them.

Golem, still in the stance of when it had fired its Hyper Beam, was now frozen solid, with the only change being the widened eyes due to the shock of the attack that had frozen it and the half of the cavern that it stood on.

While staring at this, Ash was once again reminded at the gap between him and his blonde friend as a trainer.

Cynthia walked up to Milotic and smiled as she stroked her neck, drawing a pleased cry from the Tender Pokémon. "Thanks, girl," Cynthia said as she raised the Pokéball and returned Milotic who was smiling as if to say 'any time'.

Ash looked around the cave, remembering the Onix that had been fighting Golem in the first place, finding no sign of it, though he did spot a large hole near the edge of the cavern, signaling that Onix had simply used the first opportunity to get away from Golem.

"Hey you okay down here?" a voice called, drawing the attention of both trainers as they just now remembered that there were people on the upper levels. Heading towards the section of the cave where the ladder was, both trainers were somewhat surprised to see that even all the way back here there were numerous fallen rocks, one of which had apparently destroyed the ladder and left the bottom floor for the most part inaccessible.

Seeing one of the men from before that had been digging, Ash yelled up at the man, "Yeah we're fine, but the ladder is broken." The man gave a confirmation before asking what had happened, "There was a fight between a Golem and an Onix," he yelled up drawing shock from the people who were listening, since Golem were very rare in the wild.

Cynthia spoke up now, "We'll be fine, the exit's still open so we're going to continue on to Cerulean City!" she yelled up as they both turned and started to head out.

As they were leaving, Ash took another look at the frozen Golem that was showing no sign of going anywhere anytime soon. Looking at Cynthia as she paid the frozen Megaton Pokémon no mind, Ash was once again amazed at just how powerful the girl was.

Cynthia, noticing that Ash was falling behind, looked back and caught him looking at the multitude of sheets of ice that blanketed half the cavern they were walking through. She also caught notice of something that she remembered seeing a few times when she had used the same power to completely crush several trainers during her time traveling through her home region. "Ash, you coming?" she called out, causing a slight jump from both Ash and Pikachu before they both made their way over to her.

"Sorry about that," Ash said in a somewhat sheepish voice as they started walking.

Cynthia noticed that the look that she had seen was still there, 'I guess I'll need to talk to him later' she thought.

The two trainers exited the cavern and noticed that it was starting to get late, as the sun was just now starting to descend. They both noticed a sign that said there were still a few miles to go until Cerulean City, causing both trainers to let out a slight sigh.

"Well I guess we should start setting up for the night," Cynthia said, getting a nod from Ash, who began to unpack what he would need for the night while she did the same.

After the better part of an hour, both trainers had finished setting the camp up, though they had foregone the tent due to the fact that they didn't really much feel like pitching it unless needed. They currently sat waiting for the food to finish cooking, with all of their Pokémon sitting around the camp doing their own thing.

Looking around the camp, Cynthia watched Ash's Pokémon and Ash himself, 'well, nothing better to do,' she thought as she noticed Ash still a bit more quiet than normal. "Hey Ash," she started, while she was trying to think how to approach this without causing the younger trainer to become defensive. Internally she was completely clueless how to approach this and had to sweat drop, 'This is a lot harder than I thought,' she said to herself.

Ash made his way over and sat down at the fire where Cynthia had been working on the food, "What's up?" he asked after taking a seat.

Cynthia was somewhat startled out of her thoughts as Ash had already put her on the spot, 'Well I guess I'll just wing it,' she thought before she posed a question she hoped Ash wouldn't take the wrong way. "Well, I was thinking about it and I was wondering if you felt like training with me and the team tomorrow?" she asked while she was praying that he wouldn't take offense to it.

Ash looked somewhat downtrodden at this, "You're already a lot further along than me so how would you benefit from me helping you with your training?" he asked causing Cynthia to wince at his wording.

"Well to tell the truth it's cause I saw you looking at Milotic's Ice beam back at the cave," Cynthia said after taking some time to think how to say this.

"Well, it is kind of amazing just how much power that one move had," Ash said while blushing a little.

To his surprise, Cynthia looked down and seemed somewhat ashamed when he said this. "Did I say something wrong?" he asked, causing her to look up and shake her head.

"No. It's just, I noticed something when you were looking at the ice," she started, "To tell the truth, I wasn't actually the most pleasant person to be around while traveling," Cynthia admitted. Seeing Ash about to interrupt, she raised a hand and stopped him, "I didn't get along with people very well, and spent a lot of time just pushing my Pokémon to get stronger, not really thinking much on the pain it might cause them," she said while again looking ashamed. "To tell the truth, a lot of people quit as trainers because of how harshly I battled," she said, causing Ash to gape at her in surprise.

Seeing the connection, Ash spoke up, "I wasn't planning on quitting as a trainer Cynthia. It just was a bit demoralizing to see just how much of a gap between us there is," he admitted, causing Cynthia's eyes to widen.

After a moment, Cynthia spoke up, "How do you know what demoralize means?" she asked, causing Ash to face plant at the randomness of the question and all the Pokémon to chuckle, if not laugh outright.

"It's not really part of what we're talking about is it?" Ash said, hoping to stay on topic, if only to avoid any more laughter directed at him.

With a light laugh, Cynthia got back onto the topic they were discussing, "Well the main reason I was asking you to train with me and my team was to help you get better, since it can't really hurt to train anyway right?" she said, drawing a nod from Ash.

"I guess I see where you're coming from," Ash said as he could understand her point. "So I guess we'll start training tomorrow then?" he asked, receiving a nod from his blonde haired friend.

Seeing that their conversation was done, Cynthia turned her attention back to the food, which was now starting to burn, "Ahhh!" Cynthia yelped as she started to do whatever she could to save dinner from being ruined.

Ash openly laughed at this along with the Pokémon that were watching Cynthia rush around the cooking fire, causing Cynthia to shoot a glare at them.

With a huff Cynthia spoke up, "It's still edible at least, unlike…" she left the last bit of the sentence hanging in the air, causing Ash to stop laughing and blush while all the Pokémon now directed their laughter at a new target.

Ash grabbed the dish that Cynthia offered him while mumbling under his breath, "My cooking is edible, it just doesn't taste all that great," he said as he defended his cooking ability.

Everyone in the camp sweat dropped at this, sharing a glance, Cynthia decided to voice the group opinion; "Ash, your cooking could poison a Grimer," she deadpanned.

Ash deflated at this while Pikachu patted him on the shoulder comfortingly as the group laughed.

The group continued to eat and talk as the night started to settle over them. Before long the group was sleeping peacefully at the base of the mountain, with the clear sky overhead.

* * *

**Mt. Moon**

Golem blinked as he looked around, seeing that he had been thawed out from the ice that had engulfed him. In front of him stood a man with the Onix that he had been fighting, and a Zubat sitting on his shoulder.

"Return," the man simply said as he held up a Pokéball and Golem disappeared with a grunt. Repeating the process with Onix, the man was left with the Zubat sitting on his shoulder. He then pulled what looked like a phone out of his pocket, "Tell everyone to pull out, we have all the data we're going to get from this place," he said before hanging up. As the man walked away a black uniform was all that could be seen about him, though the chest bore a red R on the front.

Several of the diggers looking for fossils would find a number of their fellow diggers had seemingly given up, though it merely meant less competition so they paid it no mind.

* * *

**that's it for chapter,**

**i'm really sorry about the randomness of my updates, this chapter in particular was harder than i thought to get working since i was having trouble with keeping my ideas in mind while typing. also, i was trying to at least have a decent length chapter so that it at least kind of made up for the wait that everyone was putting up with.**

**as i stated above, i'd really appreciate pokemon suggestions being submitted in pm's so that i can keep track of all of them for future reference.**

**i'm always open to constructive criticsm, so long as it's something i can learn from.**

**once again sorry for the wait,**

**thanks for reading,**

**Akkeiton**


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